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Sermons  and  Lectures 


BY 


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WILLIAM  ELBERT  MUNSEY,  D.D., 

LATE  OF   THE   HOLSTON   CONFERENCE,    M.    E.    CHURCH   SOUTH. 


ftuotib  QEbitioti. 


MACON,  GA.: 

J.     W.     BURKE     &     CO 

1879. 


Copyright  by 
Mbs.  VIRGINIA  A.  MUNSEY. 

1S78. 


Trow's 

Printing  &  Bookbinding  Co. 

205-213  East  \-zth  St., 

NEW   YORK. 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction 

Editor's  Preface. 


PAGB 

.     ix 


SERMON  I. 

ISAIAH'S   VISION.     (DISCOURSE   I.) 

Isaiah  vi.  1-8. "In  the  year  that  King  Uzziahdied  I  saw  also  the 

Lord  sitting  upon  a  throne,  high  and  lifted  up,  and  his  train 
filled  the  temple.  Above  it  stood  the  seraphims  :  each  one  had 
six  wings ;  with  twain  he  covered  his  face,  and  with  twain  he 
covered  his  feet,  and  with  twain  he  did  fly.  And  one  cried 
unto  another,  and  said,  Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  the  Lord  of  hosts  ; 
the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory.  And  the  posts  of  the 
door  moved  at  the  voice  of  him  that  cried,  and  the  house  was 
filled  with  smoke.  Then  said  I,  Woe  is  me  !  for  I  am  un- 
done ;  because  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the 
midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips :  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  the 
King,  the  Lord  of  hosts.  Then  flew  one  of  the  seraphims 
unto  me,  having  a  live  coal  in  his  hand  which  he  had  taken 
with  the  tongs  from  off  the  altar ;  and  he  laid  it  upon  my 
mouth,  and  said,  Lo  this  hath  touched  thy  lips,  and  thine  in- 
iquity is  taken  away,  and  thy  sin  purged.  Also  I  heard  the 
voice  of  the  Lord  saying,  Whom  shall  I  send,  and  who  will  go 
for  us  ?     Then  said  I,  Here  am  I ;  send  me." 3 

SERMON  II, 

•SAIAH'S   VISION.    (DISCOURSE    II.) 

Isaiah  vi.  1-10 !3 


IV  CONTENTS. 


SERMON  III. 


A   DISEASE  ;   A   PHYSICIAN  ;    A   REMEDY  ;    A   CURE  ;   A   REASON. 

PAGH 

Jeremiah  viii.  22. — "Is  there  no  balm  in  Gilead  ?  is  there  no 
physician  there  ?  Why  then  is  not  the  health  of  the  daughter 
of  my  people  recovered  ?  " ig 


SERMON  IV.— (A  Fragment.) 
The  ocean  of  time  and  its  shores 36 

SERMON  V. 

the  mutability  and  perishableness  of  all  earthly  things, 
and  the  immutability  and  eternity  of  god. 

Psalms  cii.  25-28. — "Of  old  thou  hast  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
.  earth ;  and  the  heavens  are  the  work  of  thy  hands.  They 
shall  perish,  but  thou  shalt  endure  :  yea,  all  of  them  shall  wax 
old  like  a  garment  ;  as  a  vesture  shalt  thou  change  them,  and 
they  shall  be  changed  :  But  thou  art  the  same,  and  thy  years 
shall  have  no  end.  The  children  of  thy  servants  shall  continue, 
and  their  seed  shall  be  established  before  thee." 41 

SERMON  VI. 

THE   LAW   AND   THE   GOSPEL.    (DISCOURSE   I.) 

Romans  iii.  31. — "  Do  we  then  make  void  the  law  through  faith  ? 

God  forbid  :  yea  we  establish  the  law 64 

SERMON  VII. 

THE   LAW   AND   THE   GOSPEL.    (DISCOURSE   II.) 

Romans  iii.  31 75 

SERMON  VIII. 

THE   LAW   AND    THE    GOSPEL.     (DISCOURSE   III.) 

Romans  iii.  31 88 


CONTENTS.  V 

SERMON  IX. 

CHRIST   THE    WAY.    (DISCOURSE   I.) 

PAQB 

John  xiv.  6. — "  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth, 

and  the  life :  " 102 

SERMON  X. 

CHRIST   THE    WAY.     (DISCOURSE   II.) 

John  xiv.  6 125 

SERMON  XI. 

CHRIST  THE  WAY.    (DISCOURSE   III.) 

John  xiv.  6 144 

SERMON  XII. 

EZEKIEL'S     VISION — DISPENSATIONS     OF     DIVINE        PROVIDENCE. 
(DISCOURSE    I.) 

Ezekiel  xi.  22. — "  Then  did  the  cherubims  lift  up  their  wings, 
and  the  wheels  beside  them ;  and  the  glory  of  the  God  of  Is- 
rael was  over  them  above." 159 

SERMON  XIII. 

EZEKIEL'S  VISION. — THE  MYSTERIOUSNESS  OF   PROVIDENCE.    (DIS- 
COURSE  II.) 
EZEKIEL  xi.   22 167 

SERMON  XIV. 

EZEKIEL'S    VISION. — THE   UNITY    OF    GOD'S     DESIGNS     IN    PROVI- 
DENCE.   (DISCOURSE    III.) 

Ezekiel  xi.  22 1 75 

SERMON  XV. 

WHY  HAST  THOU  MADE  ME  THUS  ? 

Romans  ix.  20. — "Nay  but,  O  man,  who  art  thou  that  repliest 
against  God  ?  Shall  the  thing  formed  say  to  him  that  formed 
it,  Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  " 182 


VI  CONTENTS. 

SERMON  XVI. 

THE   DAY   OF  JUDGMENT. 

PAGK 

II.  Peter  iii.  10-14. — u  But  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  come  as  a 
thief  in  the  night  ;  in  the  which  the  heavens  shall  pass  away 
with  a  great  noise,  and  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent 
heat ;  the  earth  also,  and  the  works  that  are  therein,  shall  be 
burned  up.  Seeing  then  that  all  these  things  shall  be  dissolved, 
what  manner  of  persons  ought  ye  to  be  in  all  holy  conversation 
and  godliness ;  looking  for  and  hasting  unto  the  coming  of  the 
day  of  God,  wherein  the  heavens  being  on  fire  shall  be  dis- 
solved and  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat  ?  Never- 
theless we,  according  to  his  promise,  look  for  new  heavens  and 
a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness.  Wherefore,  be- 
loved, seeing  that  ye  look  for  such  things,  be  diligent  that  ye 
may  be  found  of  him  in  peace,  without   spot,  and  blameless."   191 

SERMON  XVII. 

THE   LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS. 

John  xix.  30.  — "  It  is  finished." 207 

SERMON  XVIII. 

RETRIBUTION. 

Numbers  xxxii.  23. — "  Be  sure  your  sin  will  find  you  out." 235 

SERMON  XIX. 
peter's  defection  from  christ. 
Luke  xxii.  54-62.  —  "  Then  took  they  him,  and  led  him,  and  brought 
him  into  the  high  priest's  house.  And  Peter  followed  afar  off. 
And  when  they  had  kindled  a  fire  in  the  midst  of  the  hall,  and 
were  set  down  together,  Peter  sat  down  among  them.  But  a 
certain  maid  beheld  him  as  he  sat  by  the  fire,  and  earnestly  looked 
upon  him,  and  said,  This  man  was  also  with  him.  And  he  denied 
him,  saying,  Woman,  I  know  him  not.  And  after  a  little 
while  another  saw  him,  and  said,  Thou  art  also  of  them.  And 
Peter  said,  Man,  I  am  not.  And  about  the  space  of  one  hour 
after,  another  confidently  affirmed,  saying,  Of  a  truth  this 
fellow  also  was  with  him  :  for  he  is  a  Galilean.     And  Peter 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

PAGB 

said,  Man,  I  know  not  what  thou  sayest.  And  immediately 
the  cock  crew.  And  the  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon  Peter. 
And  Peter  remembered  the  word  of  the  Lord,  how  he  had  said 
unto  him,  Before  the  cock  crow  thou  shalt  deny  me  thrice. 
And  Peter  went  out  and  wept  bitterly." 256 

SERMON  XX. 

MAGNITUDE   OF   THE   DIVINE   COUNSELS   AND   WORK. 

Jeremiah  xxxii.  19.— "Great  in  counsel  and  mighty  in  work.". . .  270 
SERMON  XXI. 

THE     FUTURE     AND     ETERNAL     PUNISHMENT     OF    THE     WICKED. 
(DISCOURSE    I.) 

Matthew  xxv.  46.—"  And  these  shall  go  away  into  everlasting 

punishment ;  but  the  righteous  into  life  eternal." 285 

SERMON  XXII. 

THE  FUTURE  AND  ETERNAL  PUNISHMENT  OF  THE  WICKED. 

(discourse  ii.) 
Matthew  xxv.  46 297 

SERMON  XXIII. 

THE     FUTURE     AND     ETERNAL     PUNISHMENT     OF     THE     WICKED. 
(DISCOURSE    III.) 

Mark  ix.  43-48.—  "  And  if  thy  hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off:  it  is 
better  for  thee  to  enter  into  life  maimed,  than  having  two 
hands  to  go  into  hell,  into  the  fire  that  never  shall  be  quenched  ; 
where  their  worm  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched.  And 
if  thy  foot  offend  thee,  cut  it  off :  it  is  better  for  thee  to  enter 
halt  into  life,  than  having  two  feet  to  be  cast  into  hell,  into 
the  fire  that  never  shall  be  quenched  ;  where  their  worm  dieth 
not,  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched.  And  if  thine  eye  offend 
thee,  pluck  it  out :  it  is  better  for  thee  to  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  God  with  one  eye,  than  having  two  eyes,  to  be  cast  into 
hell-fire :  where  their  worm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is  not 
quenched." 310 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

SERMON  XXIV. 

THE    FUTURE    AND    ETERNAL    PUNISHMENT    OF     THE     WICKED. 

(DISCOURSE   IV.) 

PAGB 

Matthew  xxii.  13. —  "Then  said  the  King  to  the  servants,  Bind 
him  hand  and  foot  and  take  him  away,  and  cast  him  into  outer 
darkness  ;  there  shall  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth.".  . . .   322 

SERMON  XXV. 

"  NOW  WE   SEE   THROUGH  A  GLASS,  DARKLY." 

I.  Corinthians  xiii.  12. — ''  For  now  we  see  through  a  glass, 
darkly  ;  but  then  face  to  face  :  now  I  know  in  part ;  but  then 
shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known." 333 

SERMON  XXVI. 

THE   RESURRECTION    OF   THE    HUMAN    BODY. 

I.  Corinthians  xv.  35. — "  .  .  How  are  the  dead  raised  up?  and 

with  what  body  do  they  come  ?  " 354 

SERMON  XXVIL— (A  Fragment.) 
The   dying  year.  (Watchnight.) 373 

LECTURE  I. 

ELIJAH. 

I.  Kings  xvii.  24 379 

LECTURE  II. 

MAN. 

Psalms  viii.  3-5  ;  Genesis  ii.  7 404 

LECTURE  III. 
Music 425 

LECTURE  IV. 

intemperance. 

HaB\KKUKU.    15 451 

LECTURE  V. 

THE  BIBLE. 

John  xui.  17 474 


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f .  D  .13  .FIRS  T  PAS  T  OB.- 


INTRODUCTION. 


BUT  a  few  days  had  elapsed  after  the  death  of  William 
Elbert  Munsey,  D.D.,  when  there  appeared  in  the 
editorial  columns  of  the  "  Christian  Advocate"  at  Rich- 
mond, Va.,  a  tribute  to  his  worth  and  an  appreciative  esti- 
mate of  his  powers,  written  by  Dr.  Bennett,  President  of 
Randolph  Macon  College  ;  simultaneously  with  this,  also 
a  communication  to  the  "Christian  Advocate"  at  New 
Orleans,  La.,  written  by  myself,  in  which  expression  is  given 
to  the  admiration  which  the  genius  and  gentleness  of  this  re- 
markable man  had  inspired.  Some  weeks  subsequently 
there  were  published  in  the  "Holston  Methodist"  at  Knox- 
ville,  Term.,  several  articles  from  the  pen  of  its  Editor,  Rev. 
R.  N.  Price,  and  one  from  the  Rev.  B.  W.  S.  Bishop,  a  life-long 
personal  friend  of  Dr.  Munsey  ;  also,  in  the  "  Christian 
Advocate"  published  at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  a  short  sketch 
and  tribute  from  the  pen  of  Rev.  H.  P.  Waugh,  a  member  of 
the  Holston  Conference,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Quarterly 
Conference  that  licensed  Dr.  Munsey  to  preach ;  filled  with 
valuable  items  illustrative  of  his  character  as  a  man  and  a 
Minister.  These  latest  notices  were  written  by  those  who 
had  known  him  from  the  beginning,  and  give  the  more  sobei 
view  which  is  taken  of  a  prophet  in  his  own  country. 

Believing  that  such  contributions  from  distinct  sources 
would  present  to  the  reader  of  these  Sermons  fuller  and 
fairer  outlines  of  their  Author  than  any  portraiture  could  if 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

drawn  by  a  single  pen,  I  have  ventured  to  transfer  these 
chaplets  from  his  tomb  to  the  more  enduring  monument  of 
his  own  building — lofty  in  its  genius,  strong  in  the  breadth 
of  clear,  profound  thought,  and  beautiful  in  its  unity  and 
simplicity  of  design — an  undying  devotion  to  the  Church 
of  Christ  and  to  the  ministry  of  the  Word  :  "  The  last  re- 
quest I  have  to  make  of  the  Church  and  its  Bishops  is,  give 
me  work.  I  love  my  Church  and  I  love  its  Bishops,  and 
outside  the  pale  of  the  one  and  from  under  the  authority  of 
the  other  my  life  is  a  failure.  Help  me  and  trust  me,  and 
you  may  carry  this  little  note  to  the  Judgment." — Dr.  M.  to 
Bishop  McT.  at  Holstoti  Conference,  Knoxville,  October  25, 
i875. 


Frotn  the  Richmond  Christian  Advocate. 

The  death  of  this  remarkable  man  was  sudden  at  Jones- 
boro,  Tenn.,  on  the  23d  of  October.  This  much  the  light- 
ning flashes  to  us,  and  nothing  more.  We  are  sad,  but  not 
surprised.  We  looked  for  the  silver  cord  of  his  life  to  snap 
in  a  moment.  It  was  kept  at  full  tension  for  years,  and  the 
wonder  is  that  it  bore  the  heavy  strain  so  long. 

And  now  that  the  troubled,  suffering,  nervous  man  is  dead, 
and  the  clods  lie  cold  upon  his  heart,  let  us  draw  nigh,  rev- 
erently, and  study  the  lesson  of  his  life. 

As  a  self-cultured  man  he  stands,  we  think,  quite  alone  in 
this  generation  ;  at  least,  we  can  now  recall  no  man,  who, 
against  such  odds,  climbed  to  such  a  height.  But  few  men 
are  self-made  in  the  true  sense ;  but  if  any  man  might  claim 
to  have  cut  and  cleared  liis  own  way,  Dr.  Munsey  was  that 
man. 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

He  was  born  amid  the  mountains  of  Southwest  Virginia, 
and  grew  up  a  hardy  son  of  toil.  He  was  familiar  with  all 
the  heavy  work  of  a  mountain  farm,  and  often,  after  a  hard 
day's  labor,  carried  wood  on  his  back  nearly  a  mile  to  make 
the  evening  fire.  It  is  marvellous  that  such  a  toil-worn  boy 
should  burst  out  into  such  a  wonderful  man.  He  early  felt 
that  mysterious  longing  for  knowledge  which  sometimes 
seizes  the  youthful  mind  when  under  the  heaviest  disadvan- 
tages, and  any  book  that  fell  in  his  way  was  eagerly  de- 
voured. It  is  said,  that  when  plowing,  he  would  place  his 
book  at  the  end  of  the  furrow,  and  when  he  came  to  it 
would  pause  and  read  a  few  moments,  and  then  push  on 
between  the  plow-handles,  fixing  the  thoughts  in  his  mind. 
His  stock  of  knowledge  grew  apace,  but  his  appetite  was 
insatiable,  and  his  ardent  soul  panted  for  deeper  draughts  at 
the  fountain  of  knowledge. 

In  early  manhood  he  entered  the  ministry  of  our  Church 
and  became  a  member  of  the  Holston  Conference,  in  which 
he  rose  rapidly  to  eminence  as  a  preacher.  Soon  after  the 
close  of  the  war  he  came  to  the  Baltimore  Conference,  and 
was  stationed  in  Alexandria ;  here  his  sermons,  unlike  any- 
thing that  had  been  known  in  the  eastern  portion  of  om 
work,  attracted  immense  congregations,  and  the  church  was 
crowded  to  overflowing,  whenever  it  was  known  that  he 
was  to  preach.  Many  persons,  it  is  said,  provided  them- 
selves with  camp-stools  and  took  them  to  church,  and  thus 
crowded  the  very  aisles.  The  presence  of  hundreds  of 
eager  and  interested  hearers  from  all  classes  and  ranks  of 
society  stimulated  the  preacher  to  the  last  degree  of  mental 
exertion,  and  such  was  his  physical  prostration,  after  the  two 
Sunday  sermons,  that  he  tossed  on  his  sleepless  bed  for  two 
or  three  nights. 

His  fame  as  a  preacher  spread  far  and  wide,  and  he  was 
in  constant  demand  for  all  grand  occasions.       He  appeared 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

occasionally  as  a  lecturer,  and  in  this  hackneyed  and  difficult 
work  he  was  as  successful  as  in  the  pulpit. — The  first  lecture 
we  ever  heard  him  deliver  was  the  famous  one  on  Man,  in 
the  chapel  at  old  Randolph  Macon  on  the  last  commence- 
ment ever  held  there.  The  vast  amount  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge he  had  stored  his  mind  with  was  truly  amazing.  He 
spoke  as  if  he  had  been  a  professor  in  every  branch  of 
science  for  a  lifetime.  Every  technical  term  was  at  his 
tongue's  end.  Man  was  presented  in  spirit,  soul,  and  body 
as  the  most  wonderful  trichotomy  of  the  universe  ;  was 
analyzed,  synthetized,  exalted,  and  glorified  as  the  last  and 
grandest  work  of  God.  He  soared  amid  clouds,  and  light- 
ning, and  thunder,  and  tempests;  he  was  as  familiar  with 
anatomy  as  if  he  had  been  a  Sir  Charles  Bell  ;  with  mental 
phenomena,  as  if  he  had  been  a  John  Locke  ;  with  mythol- 
ogy, as  if  he  had  been  born  a  Greek  and  had  lived  in  Greece 
a  thousand  years.  After  getting  into  his  theme  he  rushed 
on  with  the  speed  of  an  Arabian  courser,  scarcely  pausing 
to  take  breath,  to  the  last  sentence  of  his  gorgeous  perora- 
tion. 

In  his  lecture  on  "The  Ideal,  Art,  Music,"  was  shown  the 
same  wonderful  capacity  for  appropriating  the  best  thoughts 
of  the  ages  past  on  these  aesthetic  subjects  and  the  same 
magnificent  word-painting.  In  his  Lecture  on  Elijah  he  was 
transcendently  grand,  especially  in  the  description  of  the 
appearance  of  God  to  the  prophet  in  Horeb.  He  also 
lectured  on  Temperance  in  his  later  years,  and  those  who 
have  heard  him  declare  that  his  dismal  pictures  of  the  evils 
of  drunkenness  were  enough  to  make  one's  blood  run  cold. 

In  preaching  and  lecturing  Dr.  Munsey  had  to  contend 
with  almost  every  disadvantage  that  can  be  thought  of  in 
person,  manner  and  voice.  His  body  was  long  and  gaunt, 
and  the  newest  clothes  hung  on  him  without  fitting  at  all. 
His  face  was  sallow  and   bloodless ;  his  head  small,  round 


%.. 


INTRODUCTION.  Xlii 

and  thinly  covered  with  whitish  hair.  His  voice  was  with- 
out the  slightest  trace  of  oratorical  power.  His  gestures 
were  usually  made  with  the  right  hand,  the  fingers  closed  as 
if  holding  a  pen.  And  yet,  with  all  these  drawbacks,  his 
wonderful  genius  and  his  unrivalled  power  of  word-painting 
held  vast  audiences  in  breathless  suspense  for  hours  together. 
He  always  appeared  to  be  in  a  high  state  of  nervous  ex- 
citement when  going  through  the  preliminaries  of  a  ser- 
mon or  lecture,  and  seemed  eager  for  the  intellectual  fray  to 
begin.  We  have  no  doubt  that  the  happiest  hours  of  his 
life  were  those  in  which  he  poured  out  his  torrents  of  grand 
thoughts  clothed  in  the  gorgeous  robes  of  a  resplendent 
rhetoric.  Out  of  the  pulpit  his  talk  was  like  dewdrops  gath- 
ered in  the  hand.  His  brilliancy  belonged  to  the  sermon 
and  the  lecture. 

The  life  of  Dr.  Munsey  has  a  lesson  of  the  greatest  value. 
It  is  this  :  he  labored  for  and  secured  a  high  reputation  as 
a  pulpit  orator,  by  immense  intellectual  labor,  and  he  was 
never  willing  to  fall  below  his  own  standard  either  in  preach- 
ing or  lecturing.  This  brought  him  into  a  bondage  from 
whose  hard  yoke  he  never  escaped  until  death  freed  him. 
Sick  or  well,  with  nerves  strong  or  weak,  with  head  throb- 
bing with  pain,  with  spirits  gloomy  and  cast  down,  whatever 
his  mental  or  physical  condition,  if  he  came  before  the  pub- 
lic he  must  maintain  his  reputation  as  a  pulpit  orator.  He 
had  taught  the  public  to  look  for  a  grand  exhibition,  and  he 
must  not  disappoint  them.  Nothing  is  more  difficult  to 
nurse  and  protect  than  a  great  reputation  as  a  preacher  or 
lecturer  ;  and  he  that  will  enslave  himself  to  such  work 
must  pay  the  penalty.  Our  deceased  friend  shone  in  daz- 
zling splendor  as  a  pulpit  prodigy  for  years  ;  but  we  are  con- 
vinced that  if  he  had  been  content  to  move  in  a  narrower  or 
less  brilliant  orbit,  his  light  would  have  been  steadier  and 
perhaps  more  beneficial  to  his  race. 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

His  last  scene  of  labor  was  at  New  Orleans.  We  saw  him 
at  the  session  of  our  Conference  at  Danville  the  fall  before 
he  left  for  his  new  field.  Sitting  with  him  in  his  room  at  the 
hotel,  we  had  a  long  free  talk  with  him.  He  was — as  he 
always  was — as  gentle  and  simple  as  a  child.  Spoke  of  his 
work,  sufferings,  and  troubles,  in  the  past,  and  his  hopes  for 
the  future. 

He  was  at  work  then  lecturing  to  raise  money  to  carry 
him  to  New  Orleans.  He  went  with  health  recruited  in  a 
measure,  but  in  the  long,  hot  summer  his  strength  gave  way, 
and  he  felt  compelled  to  return  to  his  native  mountains. 
For  months  he  has  been  in  East  Tennessee  building  up 
again  for  his  loved  work,  but  death  met  him  suddenly,  and 
he  now  lives  in  the  midst  of  those  heavenly  scenes  to  which 
he  so  often  bore  his  hearers  on  the  strong  wings  of  his  im- 
perial imagination. 


From  the  New  Orleans  Christian  Advocate. 

Mr.  Editor  : — The  telegram  just  received,  announcing 
the  sudden  death  of  our  friend,  Dr.  W.  E.  Munsey,  surprises 
none  of  us  who  knew  him.  When  he  came  to  this  city,  con- 
siderably more  than  a  year  ago,  it  soon  became  evident  that 
he  was  a  diseased  man.  His  nervous  system  was  a  mere 
wreck.  For  months  together  he  was  unable  to  attend  to  the 
ordinary  duties  of  a  pastor,  and  was  often  in  bed,  the  victim 
of  what  he  described  as  an  insupportable  torture  of  body  and 
mind.  He  was  forced  to  seek  some  relief  to  this  distraction 
in  anodynes  and  sedatives,  under  the  prescription  of  his 
physician.  There  seemed  at  times  to  be  only  the  thinnest 
possible  partition  between  his  highly- wrought  mental  state 
and  mania ;  yet  he  maintained  a  conscious  balance  of  rea.- 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

son  that  never  wholly  gave  ?vay.  Those  who  were  most  in- 
timate with  him,  and  had  the  fullest  opportunity  for  under- 
standing his  condition — mental,  physical,  and  moral — and 
whose  judgment  I  should  be  most  ready  to  indorse,  did  not 
hesitate  to  refer  his  often  strange  and  sometimes  inexplica- 
ble conduct  to  a  nervous  derangement  that  amounted  in 
effect  to  mental  aberration.  The  particulars  of  his  death 
may  not  reach  us  before  this  goes  to  print,  but  if  strength 
were  afforded  him  he  doubtless  left  a  good  testimony. 

As  this  was  his  last  appointment,  it  is  due  to  his  memory 
that  some  estimate  be  made  of  the  work  done  by  him  while 
here.  He  regarded  the  position  as  providential,  as  in  direct 
answer  to  prayer  ;  in  his  own  language  :  "  You  do  not  know 
how  hungry  my  soul  is  for  a  place  among  my  brethren,  and 
in  the  regular  work.  You  have  opened  a  door  which  I  have 
prayed  to  God  to  have  opened.  It  was  one  day  before  the 
reception  of  your  telegram  by  Bishop  McTyeire  that  I  felt 
the  quiet  confidence  and  assurance  that  a  place  would  be 
provided  for  me.     I  was  not  surprised  when  I  received  the 

appointment My  health  is  better  than  it  has  been  for 

fifteen  years God  helping  me,  I  will   do  you  good 

work."  The  circumstances  were  such  as  to  confirm  this 
impression.  He  had  just  returned  to  the  Holston  Confer- 
ence as  effective  after  having  been  local,  and  in  bad  health 
for  two  years.  The  Bishop  and  council  were  engaged  in 
considering  his  case,  when  a  telegram  was  announced ;  it 
was  from  New  Orleans,  asking  his  transfer  and  appointment 
to  St.  Charles  Avenue  Church.  The  two  years'  rest  and 
out-door  work,  he  supposed,  had  restored  his  nervous  sys- 
tem to  a  healthy  elasticity.  He  had  been  going  to  and  fro 
lecturing  until  he  longed  for  the  definite,  home-like  work  of 
a  Christian  pastor.  The  church  he  was  sent  to  was  to  be 
formed,  and  he  was  to  be  its  first  minister.  Not  even  the 
nucleus  of  a  Sabbath-school  yet  existed.     Only  a  church — a 


XVI  INTRODUCTION. 

most  harmonious  and  imposing  structure — had  been  reared, 
through  the  beneficence  and  energy  of  a  single  person,  who 
was  to  constitute  his  principal  official  member,  and  the  main 
guarantee  of  support.  Around  this  centre  a  society  was  to 
be  clustered,  by  the  power  of  the  preacher  in  the  pulpit,  and 
by  the  pastor's  Christian  and  personal  magnetism.  He 
dedicated  the  church,  and  began  the  history  of  the  charge. 
He  continued  in  it  about  fourteen  months.  During  that 
time  he  had  gathered  some  one  hundred  members  and  a 
good  Sunday-school ;  had  received  $2,200  salary,  exclusive 
of  house-rent — no  mean  evidences  of  success.  And  yet  for 
weeks  together  no  one  could  say  until  the  Sabbath  hour 
came,  whether  he  would  preach.  This  would  have  effectu- 
ally broken  up  the  work  of  any  other  preacher  ;  but  the  pub- 
lic patiently  came  again  and  again  upon  the  mere  chance 
of  hearing  one  of  his  sermons.  Of  the  membership  and 
congregation  who  during  this  pastorate  were  privileged  to 
hear  the  remarkable  discourses  which  fell  from  his  lips,  and 
to  know  him  socially,  there  are  many  who  will  cherish  the 
memory  of  his  genius  and  friendship  as  the  most  impressive 
and  valued  experience  of  a  lifetime. 

His  congregations  were  never  crowded,  and  formed  a  con- 
trast to  all  his  previous  experience  as  a  public  speaker. 
This  continued  to  be  to  him  a  matter  of  wonder  and  some 
mortification.  But  he  was  gradually  enlarging  the  circle  of 
his  hearers,  and  had  his  health  permitted  his  continuance, 
he  would  soon  have  been  as  popular  here  as  ever  at  any 
place. 

His  first  visit  to  New  Orleans  was  in  1870,  as  the  secretary 
for  foreign  missions,  when  he  preached  to  crowded  churches, 
and  at  Carondelet  took  up  some  $2,000  in  behalf  of  the  mis- 
sion cause.  His  hearers  were  deeply  impressed,  as  every- 
where else,  with  his  marvellous  resources  and  power  as  a 
public  speaker.     On  the  Eternity  of  God,  on  Retribution, 


INTRODUCTION.  XVll 

and  on  the  work  of  Creation,  he  pronounced  discourses  that 
constituted  an  event  in  the  life  of  the  hearer  never  to  be  for- 
gotten. 

If  I  may  estimate  the  intellectual  character  of  Dr.  Mun- 
sey :  His  power  of  application  was  enormous.  Had  not  his 
physical  constitution  been  originally  one  of  the  very  best, 
and  hardened  in  his  youth  by  the  severest  labor  of  farm-life, 
it  must  have  given  way  in  a  very  few  years.  His  habits,  if 
he  had  any,  regarded  no  time  as  necessary  for  eating  or 
sleeping.  After  preaching,  at  night,  a  sermon  of  one  or  two 
hours,  he  returned  to  his  room  to  amend,  improve  and  weigh 
over  again  every  word  that  had  been  uttered.  He  spent 
months  or  weeks,  as  the  case  might  be,  in  perfecting  his  dis- 
courses, or  in  mastering  a  science,  if  that  were  necessary  to 
the  result.  His  reading  was  extensive  ;  indeed  he  seemed 
to  have  taken  in  everything  in  the  range  of  his  studies.  His 
information  was  remarkable  for  its  accuracy  and  the  ready 
command  which  he  had  over  the  stores  he  had  acquired. 
His  language  was  drawn  from  every  quarter,  and  was  very 
rich  in  its  variety.  No  one  ever  weighed  more  nicely  the 
force  of  words  ;  their  origin,  measure,  melody,  and  exact 
meaning  were  duly  considered.  Every  utterance  was  full  of 
thought,  sentiment,  or  imagery.  He  spoke  to  the  people  as 
most  orators  speak  to  senates.  He  never  reserved  anything 
for  scholars  and  the  better-informed  classes,  but  his  senten- 
ces were  compact,  and  as  full  of  tttought  as  he  was  capable 
of  framing  them.  His  logical  power  was  of  the  highest 
order,  his  grasp  like  that  of  a  vise.  Added  to  this,  he  was 
capable  of  the  profoundest  metaphysical  analysis  and  discus- 
sion ;  and  yet,  above  all,  his  imaginative  lift  and  creative 
power  could  only  be  compared  to  that  of  the  sixth  book  of 
Paradise  Lost  in  its  sustained  grandeur.  With  these  trans- 
cendent gifts  he  combined  the  natural  expression  of  strong 
common  sense.     He  never  for  a  moment  was  lost  in  the 


XV111  INTRODUCTION. 

glow  of  his  own  thought,  or  the  blinding  effects  of  his  own 
brilliant  utterances.  He  maintained  a  poise  and  self-posses- 
sion scarcely  if  ever  seen  in  the  orator  or  poet.  While  the 
attention  of  every  one  was  chained,  and  each  listener  felt  him- 
self spell-bound  by  this  master  of  assemblies,  he  alone  was  the 
spectator,  of  all  the  vast  audience,  that  hung  upon  every 
word  of  his  culminating  periods  in  long-continued  ascent. 
In  an  instant  the  speaker  had  returned  from  these  di/zy 
heights  to  the  ordinary  plane  of  his  discourse,  without  jar, 
and  seemingly  without  effort.  His  methods  were  the  reverse 
of  the  rhetorician's — at  the  highest  point  of  an  extended, 
highly-wrought  passage  his  words  became  the  most  familiar, 
and  his  finish  was  as  natural  as  it  was  exquisite  in  the  grace  of 
homeliest  speech.  He  had  his  audience  prepared  in  a  few 
moments,  by  this  simplicity  of  style,  for  a  new  flight.  No 
one  could  preach  more  sublimely  upon  the  cross.  On  such 
occasions  no  one  who  ever  heard  him  can  forget  the  power  and 
pathos  of  his  delineation  :  the  darkness  of  the  sixth  hour,  the 
rocking  mount,  the  rising  dead,  the  vail  rent,  the  bleeding  Vic- 
tim. It  is  questionable  to  my  mind  if  there  lived  any  great- 
er master  of  an  audience,  either  in  this  country  or  England. 
Where  he  had  longest  preached  there  the  largest  crowds 
thronged  to  hear  him.  This  must  be  considered  the  final  test 
of  oratory.  At  Marion,  in  Virginia,  during  the  session  of 
the  Holston  Conference,  where  he  had  often  preached  and 
was  well-known,  one  might  have  walked  upon  the  heads  of  the 
audience.  Flumes  were  constructed,  and  ladies  were  shot  by 
them  into  the  house  through  its  windows  ;  the  altar  was  filled 
with  persons  standing,  and  three  individuals  had  seated 
themselves  for  the  service,  one  on  each  side  of  the  book- 
board  and  one  directly  under  it  in  front,  in  a  half-bent  pos- 
ture. In  Richmond  the  house  was  filled  two  hours  before 
the  time  of  service.  His  great  passages  could  be  repeated 
again  and  again  without  loss  of  power.     He  introduced  his 


INTRODUCTION.  XIX 

figme  of  the  Lost  Soul  after  a  lecture  at  Centenary  College 
chapel.  I  had  heard  it  before,  but  to  me  it  was  fully  as 
great  as  ever  ;  while  the  audience,  at  its  conclusion,  was  so 
bewildered  as  to  rise  up  in  an  unconscious  way,  facing  each 
other,  and  not  knowing  for  some  moments  whether  to  remain 
or  leave  the  room. 

Notwithstanding  his  extraordinary  gifts  and  reputation,  it 
was  delightful  to  notice  in  him  the  entire  absence  of  self- 
consciousness,  or  the  least  shade  of  pretence.  He  always 
looked  as  if  just  called  out  of  a  twelve-acre  field,  with  the 
dust  of  the  plow-share  still  on  him.  But  Elisha  did  not  come 
out  of  the  field  to  his  work  in  any  greater  simplicity  of  pur- 
pose. He  was  tall,  strongly  knit,  and  rapid  and  ungraceful 
in  his  motions.  His  presence,  voice,  enunciation  and  dress 
were  adverse  to  our  conceptions  of  what  is  important  to  the 
highest  power  of  an  orator.  It  was  in  spite  of  these  defects 
that  his  great  successes  were  achieved.  His  sympathies 
were  universal.  He  entertained  and  attracted  equally  the 
old  and  the  young,  the  learned  and  the  ignorant.  He  was 
genial,  and  of  all  the  most  unaffected  and  ingenuous  in  social 
life.  His  nervous  system,  the  most  delicately  impressible 
that  was  ever  strung  upon  a  human  frame,  responded  to 
every  breath  and  movement  about  him.  Though  a  most 
penetrating  and  constant  student  of  character,  he  was  ap- 
parently free  from  censorious  or  envious  thought,  and  took  a 
sincere  and  tender  interest  in  whatever  concerned  others. 

When  but  a  youth  he  was  left  with  the  charge  of  his 
mother's  family,  and  in  absolute  poverty.  He  toiled  on, 
plowing,  and  reading  at  the  end  of  the  furrow.  And  in  a  life 
not  much  exceeding  forty  years  he  made  himself,  in  the  true 
sense.  "  a  workman  that  needeth  not  to  be  ashamed." 

He  leaves  a  wife  and  five  children,  for  whom  I  feel,  in 
common  with  the  thousands  of  our  people,  the  profoundest 
sympathy.     No  one  has  contributed  more  to  the  reputation' 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

of  the  pulpit  of  the  Methodist  Church  South  for  ability  and 
true  eloquence  than  he  did.  And  I  cannot  but  believe  that 
all  who  ever  heard  or  knew  him  will  aid  in  the  circulation  of 
his  sermons,  whenever  published.  He  left  a  considerable 
number  of  them  ready  for  the  press — a  volume  which,  if 
properly  managed,  will  yield  his  necessitous  family  no  incon- 
siderable relief. 

New  Orleans,  October  25,  1877. 

K. 

Since  the  above  was  in  print  the  following  account  of  his 
death,  in  the  Knoxville  Tribune,  has  come  to  hand  : 

Jonesboro,  Tenn.,  October  23. — Dr.  William  E.  Munsey 
died  at  his  residence,  in  this  place,  at  ten  minutes  after  eight 
o'clock  this  morning.  He  had  been  suffering  intensely  from 
pain  in  his  head  for  several  days  past,  and  had  spoken  of  a 
slight  pain  in  the  region  of  the  heart.  He  said  to  his  wife 
last  night  that  he  did  not  expect  to  live  through  the  day,  but 
as  he  was  no  worse  than  he  had  been  it  was  thought  that  he 
was  feeling  despondent.  His  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Kennedy 
Blair,  had  been  with  him  for  two  weeks  past,  but,  thinking 
he  was  better,  had  sent  to  the  livery  stable  for  a  horse  to  go 
home.  The  doctor  was  sitting  in  an  arm-chair,  and  Mr. 
Blair,  seeing  that  he  seemed  to  be  suffering,  asked  him  if  he 
did  not  want  to  lie  down.  The  doctor  was  then  assisted  to 
the  bed,  and  seemed  to  be  much  weaker  than  usual.  After 
Mr.  Blair  had  assisted  him  to  bed  he  stepped  out  of  the 
room  for  some  purpose.  When  he  came  back  the  doctor  was 
on  his  knees  by  the  bedside,  and  Mr.  Blair,  thinking  that  he 
was  having  a  nervous  attack,  went  to  his  assistance,  and  took 
him  in  his  arms.  The  doctor  called  his  name  once,  threw 
his  head  on  Mr.  Blair's  shoulder,  and  died  instantly,  and 
without  a  struggle.  For  a  long  while  the  doctor's  nervous 
system  has  been  shattered,  and  he  had  been  unable  to  under 


INTRODUCTION.  xxi 

take  any  work.  While  he  has  been  in  very  bad  health,  his 
death  was  entirely  unexpected,  and  was  a  great  shock  to  the 
community.  The  funeral  of  the  great  preacher  will  be  post- 
poned until  his  relatives  can  reach  here  from  Virginia.  It 
will  probably  take  place  day  after  to-morrow  (Thursday). 
We  have  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  his  home.  As  he  lies 
in  his  coffin  he  is  a  splendid  specimen  of  a  man,  his  finely- 
formed  face  looking  as  it  once  did  in  the  pulpit,  when  he  was 
the  most  eloquent  pulpit  orator  n  the  South.  He  has 
changed  very  little,  and  is  as  fine-looking  now,  as  he  lies  in 
his  coffin,  as  he  was  in  his  brightest  days.  Rev.  Dr.  Sullins 
is  expected  here  to-night,  and  will  probably  preach  the 
funeral  sermon. 


From  the  Holston  Methodist. 

Mr.  Editor  : 

I  believe  I  knew  Dr.  Munsey  the  first  five  years  of  his 
ministry  better  than  any  living  man  knew  him.  Certain  I 
am,  1  have  never  known  any  man  so  intimately  since.  We 
met  and  made  each  other's  acquaintance  when  we  were  boys. 
We  were  born  in  adjoining  counties.  We  were  both  con- 
verted in  September,  1850.  We  were  both  licensed  to  preach 
in  September,  1855.  We  joined  Conference  in  the  same 
class  at  Knoxville,  Tenn.,  in  October,  1856.  We  were  sent 
to  adjoining  circuits  ;  he  to  Decatur  and  I  to  Charleston. 
Calhoun  was  in  his  work.  This  village  is  separated  from 
Charleston  by  the  Hiwassee  River.  A  bridge  spanning  the 
river  at  this  point  made  our  frequent  meeting  convenient 


xxii  INTRODUCTION. 

Our  time  for  rest  and  study  was  spent  together.  I  must 
have  heard  him  preach  as  often  as  twenty-five  times  this 
year.  I  do  not  believe  his  heart  knew  a  secret  that  was  not 
revealed  to  me.  I  mention  these  facts  simply  to  show  that 
I  have  had  the  opportunity  of  knowing  whereof  I  affirm. 

Dr.  Munsey  never  was  a  student  in  any  other  than  the 
common  schools  taught  in  his  neighborhood.  But  he  studied, 
and  learned,  and  taught  until,  in  his  twenty-fourth  year,  he 
entered  the  Holston  Conference  a  good  English  scholar. 

He  was  converted  under  the  ministry  of  Rev.  Geo.  Stewart. 
Bro.  Stewart  led  him  to  the  altar  the  ist  day  of  September, 
1850,  when  he  was  a  little  more  than  seventeen  years  old. 
He  was  converted  that  night. 

He  was  very  popular  on  his  first  charge  ....  He 
preached  three  years  before  he  exhibited  extraordinary 
power  as  a  reasoner,  but  his  imagination  was  superior  from 
the  first.  He  painted  heaven  and  hell  with  the  fluency  and 
fervid  emotion  of  Pollock.  Before  he  was  twenty-five  his 
imagination  was  equal  to  that  of  Christmas  Evans,  and  his 
language  far  more  chaste  and  elegant.  His  pictures  of  the 
horrors  of  the  lost  often  confused,  bewildered,  and  alarmed 
his  audience.  His  canvas  was  always  before  him,  and  I 
have  never  heard  the  man  who  held  the  pencil  with  so  steady, 
or  guided  it  with  so  skilful,  a  hand. 

The  first  published  eulogy  of  Munsey  was  from  the  pen 
of  a  gentleman  from  New  Jersey.  It  was  during  his  second 
year  in  Chattanooga.  The  gentleman  was  stopping  at  the 
Crutchfield  House,  and  asking  for  a  church  on  Sabbath 
morning  was  directed  to  the  Methodist  Church  on  the  hill. 
Munsey  completely  captivated  him.  He  wrote  to  a  New 
Jersey  paper  that,  from  an  unknown  preacher  in  Chatta- 
nooga, he  had  heard  the  grandest  flights  of  eloquence  he  had 
ever  heard  in  his  life  ;  and  this,  after  having  listened  to  Clay, 


INTRODUCTION.  XXlll 

Webster,  and  Calhoun  in  the  United  States  Senate,  and  to 
some  of  the  most  eloquent  divines  in  the  American  pulpit. 
The  letter  was  copied  by  a  Chattanooga  paper  and  one  other 
Southern  journal,  probably  an  Atlanta  weekly. 

In  i860,  at  Asheville,  N.  C,  he  preached  to  the  Holston 
Conference  in  the  chapel  of  the  Female  College.  His  uncle, 
Rev.  T.  K.  Munsey,  said  to  me,  "  That  is  Elbert's  most  fin- 
ished sermon."  His  text  was  Eph.  v.  13  ;  the  theme,  Natu- 
ral and  Revealed  Religion.     He  had  lear?ied  to  reason. 

After  this  time  I  never  heard  him  preach  but  one  sermon 
that  was  not  for  the  most  part  theoretical,  metaphysical,  dry, 
and  hard.  At  Athens,  in  1862,.  on  The  Resurrection,  Acts 
xxvi.  8  ;  at  Wytheville,  in  1863,  on  the  Pale  Horse  and  his 
Rider,  Rev.  vi.  8  ;  and  at  Marion,  in  1865,  on  the  Mysteries 
of  Religion,  1  Cor.  xiii.  12,  there  were,  in  my  opinion,  very 
few  persons  who  understood  him. 

He  used  frequently  to  ask  me  to  tell  him  frankly  what  I 
thought  of  his  sermons,  and  on  the  occasions  referred*  to  at 
Wytheville  and  Marion,  made  that  request.  I  told  him  at 
both  places,  that  I  did  not  understand  him  myself,  nor  did  I 
believe  any  one  else  did.  He  received  this  opinion  as  pleas- 
antly as  it  was  given,  and  playfully  remarked  that  he  hoped 
all  the  congregation  were  not  so  stupid  as  myself. 

The  first  of  his  sermons  that  found  its  way  to  the  press 
was  preached  in  Chattanooga,  in  1863.  It  was  published  in 
three  instalments  of  a  Chattanooga  paper.  He  did  me  the 
kindness  to  send  me  a  copy.  The  Confederate  war  was 
going  on,  and  the  occasion  was  a  national  fast.  His  text 
was,  "  The  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon,"  Judges  vii.  18. 
He  afterward  regretted  having  furnished  it  to  the  press. 
When  we  met  in  Wytheville,  the  following  fall%  and  I  took 
occasion  to  thank  him  for  the  copy  sent  me,  he  said,  "  I  am 
very  sorry  I  suffered  that  sermon  to  be  printed."  Then  after 
mentioning  some  typographical  errors,  he  seized  upon  the 


XXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

sermon  itself  and  criticised  it  as  cruelly  as  ever  Fadladeen 
criticised  the  poems  of  Feramorz. 

I  have  said  that  after  i860  I  never  heard  him  preach  but 
one  sermon  that  was  not  dry  and  hard.  I  must  take  that 
back.  His  sermon  at  Marion,  in  1873,  was  not  of  this  char- 
acter. Neither  was  the  one  on  the  Law  and  the  Gospel, 
preached  at  Elk  Garden  last  July,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Abingdon  District  Conference.  Both  of  these  sermons  con- 
tained the  pith  and  marrow  of  gospel  truth.  Both  are  fresh 
in  my  memory  .to-day.  In  the  last  he  described  Sinai  on  the 
occasion  of  the  giving  of  the  law,  with  the  familiarity  of  one 
who  had  been  at  its  base,  had  spent  his  boyhood  sporting 
among  its  rocks,  and  had  been  present  and  seen  the  cloud 
and  the  lightning  and  heard  the  thunder.  He  told  the  dis- 
tance from  the  cloud-capped  peak  to  the  valley  of  Rahah 
with  the  accuracy  of  one  who  had  just  been  over  it  with 
chain  and  compass. 

Munsey  was  a  wonderful  man.  Wonderful  in  his  fervid, 
brilliant  imagination ;  wonderful  in  the  ready  grasp  of  his  in- 
tellect ;  wonderful  in  his  power  of  close  and  thorough  inves- 
tigation ;  and  then  wonderful  in  his  simplicity  and  affability 
in  the  social  circle. 

I  have  known  his  patience  severely  tried,  but  I  never  knew 
him  use  but  one  unkind  remark.  This  was  when  he  was 
the  victim  of  personal  abuse  in  a  newspaper.  The  remark 
was  made  in  a  private  letter  to  me,  but  was  not  severe,  though 
it  showed  that  Munsey  had  tender  sensibility. 

I  knew  him  intimately.  I  knew  his  heart's  happiness  and 
its  misery.  I  have  seen  him  weep  when  in  trouble ;  he  has 
poured  into  my  ears  the  story  of  griefs  that  no  stranger 
should  know  or  could  appreciate.  I  have  walked  with  him 
through  the  pine  woods  of  McMinn  or  Bradley,  and  endeav- 
ored to  assist  him  in  turning  his  attention  from  cares  and  anx- 
ieties that  oppressed  him,  by  talking  of  God  and  Christ  and 


INTRODUCTION.  XXV 

heaven.  Together  we  have  knelt  in  those  deep  groves  and 
prayed  with  and  for  each  other.  Ah  !  those  who  knew  him 
slightly  censured  him  sharply.  But  to  one  who  knew  his 
more  private  life,  and  who  has  enjoyed  his  sympathy  and  con- 
fidence, Munsey  appears  as  a  grand  man.  And  grand  he 
was.  Not  faultless,  but  as  near  it  as  the  majority  of  our 
race.  When  he  would  hear  of  something  unkind  that  had 
been  said  of  him,  he  did  not  return  railing  for  railing.  He 
was  one  of  the  meekest,  most  forgiving  spirits  I  ever  knew. 

"  His  life  was  gentle,  and  the  elements 
So  mixed  in  him  that  nature  might  stand  up 
And  say  to  all  the  world, 
This  was  a  man." 

I  am  thankful  that  the  Church  has  had  a  Munsey,  and  that 
I  enjoyed  his  acquaintance  and  friendship.  I  could  say  much 
more,  but  I  forbear. 

Benj.  W.  S.  Bishop. 

Emory,  Va.,  March  15th. 


[This  sketch  by  Mr.  W.  appeared  in  the  Nashville  Chris- 
tian Advocate^ 

"  Mr.  Editor  : — As  I  was  the  preacher  in  charge  when 
Dr.  Munsey  was  licensed  to  preach,  with  your  permission  I 
will  give  you  a  short  sketch  of  his  history.  In  the  fall  of 
1854  I  went  to  my  first  circuit,  Mechanicsburg,  in  Virginia. 
At  Rocky  Gap,  one  of  my  preaching-places  in  Tazewell, 
Va.,  I  found  Wm.  E.  Munsey  teaching  school.  I  went  round 
every  three  weeks,  and  preached  where  he  was  teaching,  on 
Sunday  evening.  As  he  was  then  a  licensed  exhorter  I 
called  on  him  to  conclude  the%services  for  me,  which  he  did 
sometimes,  with  an  exhortation,  and  finding  that  he  was  gifted 
2 


XXVI  INTRODUCTION. 

and  able  in  exhortation,  toward  the  close  of  the  Conference- 
year  I  persuaded  him  to  make  application  for  license  to 
preach,  and  he  finally  consented,  and  I  procured  a  recom- 
mendation from  the  class  of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  he 
was  examined  by  the  Rev.  T.  K.  Catlett,  at  the  quarterly- 
meeting,  which  was  also  a  camp-meeting,  held  at  Kimberlin 
Camp-ground,  in  Giles  County,  Va.,  in  September,  1855,  and 
he  was  there  licensed  to  preach,  and,  although  nearly  twenty- 
three  years  have  passed  away,  I  remember  the  scene  as  well 
as  if  it  had  been  but  a  short  while  ago.  Since  that  time  Dr. 
Munsey  has  talked  to  me  about  it,  and  was  quite  amused  at 
the  first  question  Brother  Catlett  asked  him  in  the  examina- 
tion, which  was  this  :  "  Well,  Brother  Munsey,  have  you  got 
religion  ?  "  As  was  often  the  case  in  those  days,  the  Confer- 
ence was  held  in  the  woods,  near  the  camp-ground.  Brother 
Catlett,  the  Presiding  Elder,  left  the  meeting  before  it  closed, 
and  left  me  in  charge.  On  the  last  night  of  the  meeting,  I 
appointed  Brother  Munsey  to  preach  his  first  sermon,  which 
he  did  very  successfully,  and  with  fine  effect,  to  a  large  con- 
gregation, from  the  text :  "  Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  charity, 
these  three  ;  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity  ;  "  and  before 
he  closed  a  cloud  of  glory  seemed  to  overshadow  the  congre- 
gation, a  great  shout  was  raised,  and  soon  the  altar  was 
filled  with  mourners,  and  many  were  converted ;  during  the 
night  it  was  like  the  raging  of  a  great  battle.  On  the  next 
morning  so  great  was  the  interest  that  we  held  a  consulta- 
tion, and  concluded  to  move  the  meeting  to  the  church,  a 
mile  or  two  distant,  which  we  did,  and  continued  about  a  week 
longer.  Brother  Munsey  stood  by  me,  preached,  exhorted, 
prayed,  sung,  and  labored  with  mourners  like  a  man  of  God. 
He  was  then  a  great  favorite,  and  very  popular  with  the  peo- 
ple, and,  in  fact,  remained  so  until  the  day  of  his  death. 
Little  did  I  think  then  that  he  was  to  become  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  men  on  the  American  Continent.     Dr. 


INTRODUCTION.  XXV11 

Munsey  was  then  a  fine  singer  as  well  as  a  good  school- 
teacher, although  he  was  but  about  eighteen  or  nineteen 
years  of  age,  and  was  almost  entirely  self-educated.  He  was 
of  preaching-stock  on  both  sides  of  the  house  ;  his  mother's 
maiden  name  was  Hill.  I  think  Dr.  Munsey' s  widowed 
mother  is  still  living  at  some  place  in  Missouri. 

Yours  respectfully, 

H.  P.  Waugh. 
Morristown,  Tenn.,  March  25,  1878. 


From  the  Editor  of  the  "  Holston  Methodist." 

William  Elbert  Munsey  was  born  in  Giles,  now  Bland 
County,  Virginia,  July  13,  1833.  He  was  the  son  of  the  Rev. 
David  Munsey,  and  grandson  of  the  Rev.  Zachariah  Munsey. 
His  grandfather  was  a  local  preacher  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  in  Giles  County ;  was  a  man  of  very  limited 
education,  but  of  superior  natural  parts.  He  is  still  distinctly 
recollected  in  that  country  as  a  preacher,  especially  for  a 
degree  of  eccentricity.  He  once  preached  from  a  subject 
which  he  chose  to  divide  into  three  heads.  After  pre- 
announcing  his  divisions,  he  said  he  would  preach  out  his 
third  division  first,  lest  when  he  came  to  it  he  might  be  so 
excited  as  to  forget  it.  Dr.  Munsey,  no  doubt,  inherited 
much  of  his  talent  from  this  eccentric  but  brainful  grand- 
father. 

His  middle  name  was  given  him  in  honor  of  the  Rev. 
Elbert  F.  Sevier,  a  long  while  a  prominent  member  of  the 
Holston  Conference,  and  one  of  her  most  eloquent  preach* 
ers. 


XXV111  INTRODUCTION. 

He  was  licensed  to  preach  September  ist,  1855  ;  was  re- 
ceived on  trial  in  the  Holston  Conference,  M.  E.  Church 
South,  in  October,  1856  ;  ordained  deacon  at  Chattanooga  in 
1858,  by  Bishop  Andrew  ;  and  elder  at  Asheville,  in  i860, 
by  Bishop  Paine. 

He  was  married  to  Miss  Virginia  A.  Blair,  at  Jonesboro, 
Tenn.,  May  17,  i860,  by  the  Rev.  D.  Sullins. 

His  pastoral  charges  were  as  follows  :  Decatur  Circuit, 
1856  ;  East  Knoxville  (Temperance  Hall,  or  Brownlow's 
Church),  1857;  Chattanooga,  1858,  1859;  Knoxville, 
Church  Street,  i860;  Abingdon,  1861 ;  Chattanooga,  1862, 
1863  ;  Abingdon,  1864  ;  Bristol,  1865  ;  transferred  to  Baltic 
more  Conference,  and  stationed  at  Alexandria,  1866  ;  Cen- 
tral Church,  Baltimore,  1867,  1868. 

On  the  resignation  of  Dr.  Sehon,  early  in  1869,  he  was 
appointed  Secretary  of  Foreign  Missions,  which  post  he  held 
till  May,  1870.  He  served  Central  Church  again  in  the  years 
1870-71.  At  the  Conference  of  1871,  he  was  located  at  his 
own  request,  and  removed  to  Jonesboro,  Tenn.  From  this 
place  as  a  base,  he  travelled  extensively  throughout  the  South, 
lecturing  and  preaching. 

In  October,  1875,  ne  was  readmitted  into  the  Holston 
Conference  at  Knoxville,  Tenn.,  and  transferred  to  Lou- 
isiana Conference,  and  stationed  at  St.  Charles  Avenue 
Church,  New  Orleans.  In  December,  1876,  he  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  St.  Louis  Conference.  The  transfer  having 
been  made  after  the  session  of  the  St.  Louis  Conference,  he 
came  to  Jonesboro  to  rest.  During  the  year  he  lectured 
with  great  success  in  Southwestern  Virginia,  and  preached 
occasionally  to  crowded  houses  at  home. 

He  died  in  Jonesboro,  October   23,  1877,  at   9  o'clock, 

A.M. 

He  had  been  ill  some  days,  though  not  confined  to  his  bed, 
and  talked  of  attending  the  session  of  the  Holston  Confer- 


INTRODUCTION.  xxix 

ence  to  be  held  in  Cleveland  on  the  26th.  His  death  was 
sudden  and  unexpected,  probably  from  heart  disease.  He 
had  been  left  alone  for  a  short  time,  when  his  family  returned 
to  find  him  a  pale  and  lifeless  corpse,  in  a  kneeling  posture 
by  his  bedside. 

Dr.  Munsey  was  a  double  man.  He  was  both  a  philoso- 
pher and  a  poet.  His  reasoning  faculties  were  strong  and 
well  developed.  As  he  plodded  through  his  arguments,  one 
could  but  admire  the  acuteness  of  his  logic,  seemingly  too 
acute  and  profound  to  be  accompanied  with  or  adorned  by 
any  considerable  fancy  or  imagination.  But  when  his  con- 
clusions had  been  reached,  he  would  leave  premises  and 
conclusions  behind,  and  upon  the  wings  of  imagination,  would 
dart  into  illimitable  fields  of  beauty  and  grandeur.  He  ca- 
reered through  the  universe  of  fancy  with  a  momentum  that 
was  positively  wonderful,  and  sometimes  even  terrific. 
Wherever  he  soared  and  carried  his  audience  with  him,  new 
worlds,  new  beauties,  new  sublimities,  new  horrors  sprang 
into  being  on  all  sides. 

He  could  easily  descend  from  his  flights,  fold  his  wings, 
and  then  plod  through  his  reasoning  processes  as  patiently 
as  if  he  were  totally  destitute  of  imagination. 

We  beard  him  preach  at  the  conference  at  Asheville,  N.  C, 
in  the  fall  of  i860.  In  the  sermon  his  peculiar  talent  played 
a  conspicuous  part.  The  impression  made  upon  our  mind 
at  the  time  was  that  of  the  constant  surging  of  the  billows 
of  an  ocean  of  light. 

The  greatest  efforts  we  ever  heard  from  Munsey  were  two 
sermons  preached  at  Wabash  Camp-ground,  Giles  County, 
Va.,  in  the  fall  of  1865. 

One  of  those  sermons  was  his  noted  sermon  on  Eternal 
Death.     It  was  preached  on  Sabbath  at  11  o'clock  to  a  very 


XXX  INTRODUCTION. 

large  concoi.rse  of  people.  It  was  near  the  place  of  his 
birth,  and  many  of  his  old  acquaintances  were  present.  They 
listened  with  amazement.  One  man  stood  near  the  altar 
during  the  whole  sermon,  which  was  over  an  hour  in  length, 
and  a  large  part  of  the  time  tears  were  coursing  down  his 
cheeks.  This  sermon,  though  on  a  gloomy  subject,  had 
many  beautiful  passages,  many  descriptions  of  natural  scen- 
ery that  were  life-like  and  calculated  to  fill  the  listener  with 
exquisite  pleasure.  His  description  of  the  lost  soul  was 
Miltonic. 

His  sermon  on  Monday  was  on  the  Resurrection.  This  ser- 
mon, compared  with  the  former,  was  as  "  Paradise  Regained  " 
to  "  Paradise  Lost ; "  it  was  inferior  to  it ;  but  it  was  beautiful, 
eloquent,  touching,  useful.  We  never  afterwards  heard  him 
excel  these  two  efforts.  Munsey's  power  was  at  that  time 
at  its  maximum,  though  his  reputation  was  purely  local.  He 
was  scarcely  known  outside  the  Holston  Conference. 

Many  of  his  social  and  moral  qualities  were  of  the  best 
character.  He  was  a  most  genial  companion — neither  stiff 
nor  haughty.  He  was  as  humble  and  simple  in  his  man- 
ners as  a  child.  His  conversation  and  manners  were  al- 
ways characterized  by  the  most  perfect  good  nature.  He 
never  spoke  evil  of  any  one,  unless  duty  positively  required 
it.  He  had  not  a  particle  of  malice  or  revenge  in  his  com- 
position. He  was  often  opposed  and  defamed  ;  but  while 
he  was  sensitive  in  regard  to  his  reputation,  *and  evil  re- 
port afflicted  him  sorely,  he  did  not  manifest  the  least  dis- 
position to  retaliate.  He  spoke  of  his  defamers  as  gentl) 
as  if  he  had  perfect  confidence  in  the  honesty  of  their  in- 
tentions. We  doubt  very  much  whether  he  ever  had  any  ill- 
will  towards  anybody. 

Candor  was  one  of  his  characteristic  traits.  He  unbo 
somed  himself  to  his  friends.    He  was  perfectly  transparent. 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXI 

He  was  unselfish.  He  lived  for  others.  He  was  devoted 
to  his  wife  and  children.  He  was  liberal  towards  his  friends. 
There  was  no  service  within  his  power  that  he  would  not 
perform  to  render  his  visitors  comfortable. 

When  he  was  stationed  in  Abingdon,  a  friend  called  at 
his  room  at  night  till  the  train  should  pass,  about  3  o'clock 
next  morning.  Dr.  M.  bade  him  to  retire,  promising  to 
wake  him  up.  When  at  the  proper  time  the  friend  was 
aroused,  he  was  surprised  to  find  that  Dr.  M.  had  not  re- 
tired at  all,  but  had  watched  during  the  entire  night,  lest  he 
should  fail  to  get  to  the  depot  in  time. 


I  am  indebted  for  other  important  items  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Sullins  and  to  Mr.  J.  D.  Z.  Munsey,  the  Author's  brother, 
some  of  which  have  been  anticipated  in  what  has  gone  before. 
Before  the  age  of  8  years  all  the  schooling  Dr.  M.  had  re- 
ceived amounted  to  nine  months  ;  at  the  age  of  14  years  he 
received  three  months  ;  so  that  his  school-days  covered  alto- 
gether a  period  of  twelve  months.  From  early  childhood  he 
was  a  great  reader.  As  early  as  at  five  years  he  was  called 
upon  to  read  the  Scriptures  and  political  speeches  in  public. 

His  mother,  Mrs.  Parmelia  P.  Munsey,  is  still  living,  and 
resides  at  Sampell,  Mo.  It  was  her  firm  but  gentle  hand  that 
shaped  the  ark  of  his  fortunes,  and  that  reared  the  precious 
babe  for  "the  King's  daughter."  Her  judicious  and  pious 
management  of  his  early  life  laid  the  foundation  of  its  high 
honor  and  achievements.  Of  fine  natural  ability,  with  a  true 
appreciation  of  the  importance  of  an  education — particularly 
of  general  reading — she  was  both  a  wise,  prudent,  and  good 
manager  of  home  affairs.  The  doctor  often  said,  after  his 
mother  was  left  with  her  six  children,  he  the  eldest,  then  but 
12  years  old,  that  he  could  not  have  supported  the  family 
but  for  the  great  good  sense,  industry,  and  economy  of  his 
mother.     The  directing  of  his  mind  to  books  at  an  age  so 


XXX11  INTRODUCTION. 

early,  preoccupying  him  against  the  boyish  sports  of  fishing 
and  hunting,  and  the  more  vicious  habits  of  idleness,  pro* 
fanity,  and  drunkenness,  gave  it  the  bent  for  life. 

At  one  time  his  parents  had  some  substance,  kept  tavern, 
and  had  a  store  at  Mechanicsburg,  Tenn.  The  house  was 
well  supplied  with  books,  and  Elbert  had  read  JosefPhus 
through  several  times  before  he  was  ten  years  of  age.  He 
studied  everywhere  and  always ;  at  home,  in  the  field,  going 
to  mill,  going  to  market,  or  at  school. 

At  ten  he  joined  the  church  ;  at  thirteen  he  received  at  the 
Hoge  Camp-ground,  Bland  County,  an  evidence  of  pardon, 
with  which  he  was  not  fully  satisfied  ;  at  seventeen  he  went 
forward  again  as  a  mourner  at  the  camp-meeting  on  Kimber- 
lin,  and  here  he  received  an  evidence  of  forgiveness  and  regen- 
eration which  he  never  afterwards  doubted.  When  twenty- 
three  years  old  he  was  employed  by  the  P.  Elder  upon  the 
Decatur  Circuit  of  the  Holston  Conference.  It  was  a  severe 
trial  for  him  to  leave  his  mother,  four  sisters  and  little  brother, 
for  the  work  of  the  ministry.  He  could  scarcely  respond  to 
a  call  which  seemed  to  deprive  those  dependent  upon  him 
of  their  necessary  support.  But  so  great  was  the  sense  of 
duty  which  oppressed  him,  that  he  prayed  to  God  that  He 
would  confirm  the  impression  in  some  powerful  way.  It  was 
at  Rocky  Gap,  a  short  time  before  Conference,  at  the  close 
of  a  sermon,  when  the  Holy  Spirit  came  down  and  so  filled 
him  that  he  could  neither  speak  nor  move,  and  was  carried 
from  the  pulpit  as  one  dead.  After  this,  he  never  doubted 
the  propriety  of  his  fully  entering  the  work.  His  mother  has 
the  following  entry  in  her  diary  :  "Friday,  November  21, 
1856.  William  E.  Munsey  left  home  this  morning.  It  was 
a  sorrowful  morning  indeed — my  lonely  children  and  myself 
weeping  for  my  child,  who  has  been  our  support.  We  are 
now  left  in  the  hands  of  God — He  will  provide  for  me.  I 
have  always  prayed  for  that  child — that  the  good  Lord  woulc" 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXlll 

take  him  to  Himself  and  make  a  preacher  of  him  ;  and  I  feel 
more  than  thankful  this  day  that  such  has  been  my  steady 
prayer.  I  implore  Heaven  this  morning,  with  all  that  a 
Mother's  heart  can  wish  and  feel,  for  the  blessing  to  rest 
upon  my  son  and  make  him  useful  in  the  cause  of  his 
Master." 

He  continued  ever  after  this  to  aid  in  the  support  of  his 
mother's  family  to  the  full  extent  of  his  ability. 

J.  C.  Keener. 

New  Orleans,  September  i8t  1878. 


EDITOR'S    PREFACE. 


THOSE  who  have  ever  heard  Dr.  Munsey  and  felt  the 
spell  which  his  speech  threw  over  an  audience — bind- 
ing every  one  in  it  to  submit  to  this  master  of  assemblies  as 
implicitly,  for  the  while,  as  ever  Israelite  submitted  to  volun- 
tary enslavement  when  nailed  by  the  ear — will  be  gratified  to 
find  those  golden  periods  faithfully  reproduced  in  these 
Sermons  and  Lectures  ;  the  reader  will  recognize,  it  may 
be,  the  very  word  which  years  ago  thrilled  his  soul  and  left 
itself  upon  his  memory  as  if  graven  with  a  diamond.  They 
were  prepared  so  elaborately  that  but  a  small  part  of  the 
work  done  by  their  author  appears,  and  yet  enough  to  show 
of  how  much  patient  toil  and  study  a  sermon  is  worthy. 
His  style  as  a  speaker — and  these  sermons  were  made  for 
the  ear — expressed  his  persuasion  of  the  logical  strength  as 
well  as  inspired  truth  of  his  positions,  and  was  incisively  com- 
manding ;  without  trace  of  dogmatism  on  the  one  hand,  or 
of  apology  on  the  other,  he  drove  home  the  truth. 

These  sermons  will  be  found  thoroughly  orthodox.  The 
author  treats  the  Holy  Scriptures  as  the  truth :  "  Let  us  rest 
our  feet  upon  Bible  authority  and  there  amid  its  teachings 
and  promises  found  our  faith  and  risk  our  all  ....  we  go  upon 


xxxvi       editor's  preface. 

the  assumption  that  the  Bible  is  true."  If  he  ever  seems  to 
speculate,  it  is  in  the  field  of  illustration ;  his  fancy  delights 
to  employ  the  conceits  of  the  Grecian  Mythology ;  but  with 
it  all  he  is  a  hearty  Methodist  preacher  of  the  true  itinerant 
stamp.  He  gives  no  uncertain  sound.  Here  will  be  found 
"  the  Gospel  of  lfear  and  trembling]  as  well  as  the  Gospel 
of  '  good  cheer'  " 

The  Law  and  the  Gospel,  as  correlated,  were  the  substance 
of  his  preaching.  The  Discourse  on  "  Retribution  "  and  the 
four  discourses  on  "  The  Eternity  of  Future  Punishment," 
will  be  found  exhaustive  in  their  treatment  of  these  vital 
issues.  They  will  furnish  a  timely  check  to  the  boldness  of 
Universalism,  which  has  but  recently  startled  the  Church  by 
an  unexpected  appearance  in  the  high  places  of  Orthodox 
Christianity,  rather  than  by  the  change  of  its  front  or  the  re- 
inforcement of  its  strength.  The  old  arguments  and  founda- 
tions of  this  heresy  which  have  been  covered  by  a  thousand 
pieces,  and  from  before  which  its  forces  were  glad  to  retire 
long  ago — the  Hebrew  and  Greek  words  for  "eternity" — 
are  again  laboriously  declared  to  be  its  impregnable  fortress. 
The  reader  will  find  these  discourses  are  an  ample  vindica- 
tion of  the  faith  of  the  Protestant  Churches,  and  an  over- 
whelming support  of  the  Evangelical  view  as  against  all 
theories  for  Universal  Restoration. 

No  writer  in  the  language  of  whom  we  have  knowledge 
has  reflected  with  greater  intensity  and  steadiness  upon  the 
idea  of  infinite  duration,  has  realized  it  so  vividly,  or  ex- 
pressed it  with  such  distinctness.  The  mind  in  its  attempt 
to  follow  with  him  the  vibrations  of  that  great  "  pendulum  " 


EDITOR  S   PREFACE.  XXXVll 

is  "filled  with  its  own  nothingness,  flies  into  its  little  temple, 
and  closes  all  its  doors  against  the  dread  thought." 

A  few  sentences  and  pages  over  which  Dr.  Munsey  had 
drawn  his  pen  have  found  a  place  in  this  volume,  with  what 
propriety  the  reader  must  judge.  At  the  request  of  his  widow 
the  work  of  preparing  for  the  press  a  volume  of  his  sermons 
and  lectures  was  begun  in  April  last,  in  the  hopes  that  its 
publication  would  materially  aid  in  the  support  of  his  family. 
And  it  is  pleasant  to  add  that,  by  the  generous  assistance 
of  a  true  friend  and  parishioner  of  the  author,  this  work  is 
published  exclusively  for  the  benefit  of  Dr.  Munsey* s  family. 

J.  C.  K. 

New  Orleans,  September  26,  1878. 


SERMONS. 


SERMONS  AND  LECTURES. 


SERMON   I. 
isaiah's  vision  (discourse  i.). 

"  In  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died  I  saw  also  the  Lord  sitting  upon  a 
throne,  high  and  lifted  up,  and  his  train  filled  the  temple. 

"Above  it  stood  the  seraphims :  each  one  had  six  wings :  with  twain 
he  covered  his  face,  and  with  twain  he  covered  his  feet,  and  with  twain 
he  did  fly. 

"And  one  cried  unto  another,  and  said,  Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  the  Lord  of 
hosts  :  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory. 

"  And  the  posts  of  the  door  moved  at  the  voice  of  him  that  cried,  and 
the  house  was  filled  with  smoke. 

"  Then  said  I,  Woe  is  me!  for  I  am  undone  ;  because  I  am  a  man  of 
unclean  lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips  :  for  mine 
eyes  have  seen  the  King,  the  Lord  of  hosts. 

"  Then  flew  one  of  the  seraphims  unto  me,  having  a  live  coal  in  his 
hand,  which  he  had  taken  with  the  tongs  from  off  the  altar : 

"And  he  laid  it  upon  my  mouth,  and  said,  Lo,  this  hath  touched  thy 
lips  ;  and  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away,  and  thy  sin  purged. 

"Also  I  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord,  saying,  Whom  shall  I  send,  and 
who  will  go  for  us  ?    Then  said  I,  Here  am  I ;  send  me."— Isa.  vi.  1-8. 

ONE  of  the  great  attractions  of  the  Bible,  is  that  many 
of  the  good  men  who  wrote  it,  give  us  in  detail  at 
times,  their  religious  experience.  David  does  it,  Solomon, 
and  Paul.  Isaiah  gives  us  in  magnificent  detail,  in  short, 
pithy  sentences,  the  story  of  his  regeneration  and  call  to  the 
prophetic  office.  Every  sentence  is  right  to  the  point,  and 
when  he  is  done  he  quits. 


4  SERMONS. 

Isaiah  commences  his  story  and  includes  all  the  historical 
part  of  it  in  one  sentence  :  "In  the  year  that  King  Uzziah 
died."  What  a  remarkable  year  in  the  annals  of  the  world. 
It  was  just  a  few  years  after  Romulus  was  born,  and  ten 
years  before  Rome  was  founded.  It  was  the  beginning  of 
the  decline  of  the  Israelitish  civilization,  and  the  beginning 
of  the  growth  of  the  Roman.  This  year  God  gave  up  Israel 
to  hardness  of  heart,  and  the  country  to  the  conquest  of  other 
political  powers.  God  was  now  beginning  to  take  down  the 
Jewish  fabric,  and  was  beginning  to  lay  the  foundations  of 
the  Roman  government,  in  which  the  coming  Christ  was  to 
launch  his  doctrines  for  universal  promulgation. 

At  this  time  the  splended  temple  of  Solomon  was  still 
standing,  and  God  dwelt  in  the  Holy  of  Holies.  Outside 
the  Holy  Place  still  stood  the  altar  of  burnt  offering,  upon 
which  the  fire  still  burned  which  descended  out  of  heaven 
upon  it  in  the  wilderness.  Now  Isaiah  saw  into  the  Holy 
of  Holies,  and  the  type  so  far  raised  itself  up  into  the  Ante- 
type,  that  he  saw  more  than  ever  priest  saw,  and  he  says, 
"  In  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died  I  saw  also  the  Lord  sit- 
ting upon  a  throne,  high  and  lifted  up,  and  his  train  filled  the 
temple."  The  Lord  was  Christ — the  Divine  Word.  He  sat 
there  in  human  form,  clothed  in  a  long  robe  whose  splendid 
borders  trailing  down  covered  the  entire  ground — a  train  of 
glory  filling  the  temple.  A  woman  touched  the  hem  of  the 
garment  of  the  Savior  and  was  healed.  She  had  to  make 
her  way  through  the  crowd.  The  skirts  of  the  Divine  glory 
fill  the  earth — God's  temple  in  the  new  dispensation — it  is 
not  difficult  to  touch  the  border. 

Isaiah  saw  the  Lord  "sitting"  —  the  attitude  of  dignity 
and  security.  He  was  sitting  upon  a  "  Throne,"  the  symbol 
of  dominion;  and  the  throne  was  "high  and  lifted  up," 
above  all  other  thrones,  above  all  temporal  and  human  vicis- 
situdes.    "Above"  the  throne  "  stood  seraphims."     There 


ISAIAH'S  VISION— DISCOURSE  I.  5 

is  a  difference  between  the  seraphim  and  cherubim.  In  this 
vision  is  the  only  place  in  the  Bible  where  the  seraphim  is 
mentioned.  Angels  in  various  offices  are  frequently  spoken 
of,  and  the  cherubim  carry  the  throne  in  Ezekiel's  vision, 
but  here  nearest  to  the  Divine  person  and  glory  stand  seraphs. 
The  word  seraphim  literally  means  "burning  ones."  All 
afire,  they  stand  unconsumed  in  the  fires  of  God's  glory.  We 
do  not  know  that  they  are  the  highest  order  in  the  ranks  of 
heaven,  but  we  think  so.  Some  of  the  Rabbins  say  that  the 
seraphim  love  most,  and  the  cherubim  know  most.  If  this 
is  the  difference  between  these  two  orders,  then  the  seraphim 
is  higher  than  the  cherubim.  The  Bible  reveals  nothing  more 
clearly  than  that  there  are  gradations  in  the  ranks  of  heaven's 
magnificent  hierarchy. 

These  seraphims  had  six  wings  each.  Two  wings  of  each 
were  extended  as  if  flying,  hence  they  stood  in  the  air  motion- 
less, suspended,  with  two  wings  extended — ct  they  stood  fly- 
ing," facing  each  other,  and  facing  the  throne.  They  had 
six  wings,  two  wings  of  each  were  extended  as  if  flying,  while 
two  wings  of  each  covered  their  faces,  and  two  wings  of  each 
covered  their  feet.  While  each  used  two  wings  to  fly  and 
work,  each  used  four  wings  in  awful  reverence  and  adoration. 
O,  utilitarian  in  the  divine  life,  learn  a  lesson  from  the  sera- 
phim. These  seraphims  were  on  both  sides  of  the  throne, 
"  And  one  cried  unto  the  other,  and  said,  Holy,  holy,  holy, 
is  the  Lord  of  hosts  :  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory." 
God  is  holy — His  glory  is  His  holiness  manifested,  and  God 
intends  that  such  manifestation  shall  fill  the  whole  earth. 
The  seraphim  in  their  worship,  fix  their  eye  upon  the  glori- 
ous consummation,  and  make  it  the  constant  theme  of  their 
sublime  doxology — "  Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  the  Lord  of  hosts  : 
the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory." 

At  the  song  of  the  seraphim  the  very  foundations  of  the 
temple  shook.     The  record  is,  "  the  posts  of  the  door  moved 


6  SERMONS. 

at  the  voice  of  him  that  cried,  and  the  house  was  filled  with 
smoke."  It  literally  means,  "  The  foundations  of  the  thresh- 
olds shook  with  the  voice  of  them  that  cried,  and  the  house 
was  filled  with  smoke."  The  seraphim  singing  their  antipho- 
nal  song,  the  temple  shaking,  and  the  smoke  ascending  from 
the  altar  in  front  and  filling  the  house  ;  the  Lord  on  the 
throne,  and  the  very  temple  and  fire  uniting  with  the  sera- 
phim in  his  worship, — a  thrice  holy  God — were  too  much  for 
Isaiah.  He  never  felt  before  how  unholy  he  was,  and  he 
cried  out  "  Woe  is  me  !  for  I  am  undone ;  because  I  am  a 
man  of  unclean  lips,  and  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people  of 
unclean  lips  :  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  the  King,  the  Lord 
of  hosts."  We  see  our  uncleanness,  and  un worthiness  in 
proportion  to  our  nearness  to  God.  Christians  are  always 
humble. 

But  Isaiah  was  sinful  and  thought  he  was  forever  ruined — 
undone.  Every  sinner  must  come  to  this  point.  He  had  a 
revelation  of  God's  holiness.  We  have  the  revelation  re- 
corded, read  it,  think  of  it,  reproduce  the  image,  and  pray 
God  it  may  have  the  same  effect  upon  every  sinner  in  this 
house.  Hear  his  confession  :  "  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips  " 
— "  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the  mouth  speaketh  " 
— equivalent  to  a  confession  of  an  unclean  heart.  Such  is 
the  relation  between  the  moral  nature  and  the  lips,  that 
James  teaches  if  a  man  is  able  to  control  his  tongue  he  is  a 
perfect  man.  He  stands  before  the  throne  of  Jehovah,  and 
hears  the  seraphim  praise  Him  with  their  pure  lips — their 
lips  expressing  the  reverence  of  their  natures  ;  and  his  self- 
conscious  impurity  and  want  of  reverence — his  unholiness  he 
calls  uncleanness  of  the  lips  ;  and  he  regards  his  unclean- 
ness aggravated  because  of  his  relations  to  his  wicked  coun- 
trymen, because  he  dwelt  u  in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  un- 
clean lips." 

Not  only  did  his  conscious  impurity  drive  him  to  despair, 


ISAIAH'S  VISION— DISCOURSE  I.  J 

but  he  thought  because  of  having  seen  the  Lord  he  would  die, 
and  die  quickly,  in  his  impurity.  And  so  the  Bible  teaches 
that  a  poor  finite  man  cannot  see  God's  face  and  live.  Even 
the  seraphim,  while  they  veiled  their  faces  with  their  wings  as 
a  token  of  reverence,  did  so  because  of  the  ineffable  and 
overwhelming  glory  of  the  Divine  countenance.  This  was 
in  exhibition  of  God's  holiness,  and  God's  holiness  must 
ever  be  a  consuming  fire  to  the  sinner.  But  oh  !  Isaiah  you 
would  certainly  perish  now,  but  just  at  the  moment  of  the 
greatest  manifestation  of  the  essential  holiness  of  God,  while 
the  seraphim  in  echoing  peals  of  celestial  thunder  were  at 
the  height  of  their  song,  the  throne,  and  fires,  and  light,  and 
glory,  were  dimmed  and  softened  by  volumes  of  smoke  which 
filled  the  house,  ascending  from  an  altar.  An  altar !  the 
symbol  of  sacrifice,  atonement,  redemption,  pardon,  purifica* 
tion ;  the  symbol  of  the  cross,  its  smoking  sacrifice  the  sym- 
bol of  the  Savior.  An  altar  !  and  there  it  stood  smoking 
with  fires  kindled  by  God  himself,  and  which  burned  in  the 
wilderness,  and  through  the  wilderness,  and  over  Jordan,  and 
to  Shiloh,  and  to  Jerusalem  ;  and  it  burned  on  while  Kings 
lived  and  died — and  there  it  burns  yet,  Isaiah,  for  your  re- 
demption— as  the  blood  of  Jesus  is  available  yet  for  us. 

Look  up,  Isaiah  !  your  extremity  is  God's  opportunity. 
"  Then  flew  one  of  the  seraphim  unto  me,  having  a  live  coal 
in  his  hands  which  he  had  taken  with  the  tongs  off  the  altar : 
and  he  laid  it  upon  my  mouth,  and  said,  Lo,  this  hath 
touched  thy  lips,  and  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away,  and  thy 
sin  purged."  One  of  the  seraphim  flew  unto  him.  I  told 
you  that  seraphim  literally  means  "  burning  ones."  The  true 
meaning  of  the  seraph  is  "  to  set  on  fire  "  or  "  burn  up.' 
Here  with  a  live  coal  of  the  Divine  fire  on  the  altar,  he 
burned  up  Isaiah's  sins.  The  seraphim  are  fiery  beings, 
burning  with  the  fires  of  love,  and  hence  are  burning  mes- 
sengers of  a  burning  love.     Yet  with  all  the  seraph's  purity, 


8  SERMONS. 

and  though  he  was  burning  himself  with  love  and  glory,  yet 
he  was  not  worthy  one  of  the  coals  of  the  fire  kindled  by 
God  to  purge  away  sin,  burning  upon  heaven's  sacrificial 
altar,  and  the  record  is  that  he  took  it  "with  tongs  from  off 
the  altar."  Yet  the  holiness  and  love  which  so  transcended 
the  nature  of  the  seraph  as  to  make  it  sacrilegious  in  him  to 
use  his  hands  in  place  of  the  tongs,  were  not  in  the  coal  of 
fire,  but  in  the  altar,  for  after  it  was  taken  from  the  altar  with 
the  tongs,  he  then  held  the  red-hot  coal  in  his  hand,  and 
with  his  hand  applied  it  to  the  prophet's  mouth. 

The  holiness  and  love  of  God  as  manifested  in  Jesus,  and 
a  sacrifice  for  sinners,  is  symbolized  by  the  altar  so  transcen- 
dently  and  superlatively  glorious  and  sacred,  that  even  the 
seraph,  the  holiest  spirit  in  heaven,  dare  not  touch  them. 
Mighty  God  !  what  must  be  the  fate  of  the  man  who  dares 
trample  the  blood  of  Jesus  under  his  feet,  and  account  it  an 
unholy  thing  ?  Of  the  man  who  holds  in  light  esteem  the 
sufferings  and  death  of  Jesus,  and  who  speaks  lightly  of  the 
same  ?  Paul  seems  to  teach  that  for  such  a  man  there  re- 
maineth  no  more  sacrifice  for  sin.  So  indispensable  the 
means  which  God  has  appointed  to  be  used  by  all  His  crea- 
tures in  dealing  with  sacred  things,  that  even  a  seraph  could 
not  omit  the  use  of  the  tongs.  It  might  seem  to  the  seraph, 
that  if  he  could  hold  the  coal  in  his  hand  after  it  was  taken 
off  the  altar,  why  not  take  it  off  with  his  hand — this  would 
have  been  seraphic  rationalism. 

It  seems  to  us  that  some  of  the  means  God  has  appointed 
might  be  omitted  by  us — a  human  rationalism  would  discard 
them.  Why  did  Moses  smite  the  rock  with  his  rod  to  bring 
forth  waters  ?  Why  did  he  stretch  his  rod  over  the  sea,  that 
the  waters  might  be  parted  ?  Why  did  Naaman  have  to  dip 
in  the  Jordan  ?  Why  did  Christ  order  the  lepers  to  show 
themselves  to  the  priest,  and  cure  them  before  they  got 
there  ?     Why  did   the   serpent-bitten  in   the   camp  have   to 


ISAIAH'S   VISION— DISCOURSE   I.  9 

look  at  the  brazen  serpent  on  the  pole  ?  Why  do  Christians 
have  to  fast,  pray,  and  attend  to  all  the  means  of  grace  ? 
The  answer  is,  it  is  God's  business,  our  duty  and  salvation 
are  to  obey.  If  you  are  intellectually  too  proud,  and  defi- 
ant of  God,  too  rationalistic  and  stupid,  to  obey  God  without 
a  reason,  you  will  be  lost,  and  ought  to  be.  Rationalism  is 
culpable  stupidity.  Questionless  and  submissive  throw  your- 
self at  the  feet  of  mercy,  in  God's  appointed  way;  and 
think  it,  O  weak  man  !  no  degradation  to  believe  in  God. 
Use  the  tongs. 

This  seraph  with  the  tongs  took  a  live  coal  from  the  altar 
— a  live  coal — literally  "  a  red-hot  coal."  Fire  is  the  most 
inexplicable  and  profoundest  symbol,  and  part  in  the  annals 
of  the  universal  Cosmos.  Fire  is  at  the  basis  of  the  being 
and  life  of  the  universe.  Potential — it  is  everywhere — dy- 
namic— it  runs  every  wheel  in  the  machinery  of  the  universe. 
It  evolves  elements,  and  is  the  all-potent  cause,  now  occult, 
now  burning  and  roaring  in  the  lightning's  shaft,  in  the 
movement  of  all  elements,  and  in  carrying  out  the  opera- 
tions of  nature.  It  forges  the  particles  into  a  rose  leaf,  and 
tosses  the  billows  of  the  sun  a  thousand  miles  high,  and  rolls 
them  over  the  area  of  quadrillions  of  miles,  and  shoots  out 
names  into  space  a  million  of  miles  Let  God  but  unstable 
His  fiery  horses  and  they  will  paw  the  mountains  into  cin- 
ders, and  eat  the  world  into  ashes  in  a  moment ;  but  even 
then,  hitched  to  the  car  of  our  redemption,  and  shaking 
their  fiery  manes  among  the  stars,  and  flashing  through  the 
constellations  will  roll  us  up  to  God — the  fires  of  hell  tossing 
below  with  the  damned. 

Now  in  a  high,  supersensuous,  uncreated  sense,  the  very 
foundation  of  essential  God  is  fire  and  light.  The  Bible 
says  so,  again  and  again.  Not  created  fire,  for  it  burned  in 
the  bush,  without  consuming  the  bush,  and  when  it  shone 
upon  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  brighter  than  the  sun — yet  it  was 


IO  SERMONS. 

fire— fire  burning  in  darkness  on  the  side  of  Divine  wrath, 
and  burning  in  light  on  the  side  of  the  Divine  love.  Did  not 
God  descend  in  fire  on  Horeb  ?  Was  He  not  a  fire  in  the 
bush  ?  A  fire  in  the  cloud  in  the  wilderness  ?  Did  not  a 
fire  from  the  Lord  consume  Aaron's  sacrifice  ?  Gideon's 
sacrifice?  David's  sacrifice  ?  Solomon's  sacrifice  ?  Elijah's 
sacrifice  ?  which  consumed  the  Israelites  in  the  wilderness  ? 
the  captains  and  companies  in  the  days  of  Elijah  ?  Was  not 
His  worship  a  fiery  worship  ?  and  when  heathens  lost  the 
spiritual  idea,  yet  keeping  the  traditional  fact,  have  not  their 
services  been  fiery,  even  to  the  worship  of  fire  ?  They  built 
their  very  altars  and  temples  in  the  shape  of  ascending  flames. 
Is  not  love  and  wrath  burning  fires  in  the  nature  of  God, 
and  does  not  the  fire  which  lights  the  Christian,  consume  the 
world?  There  is  a  celestial  divine  fire,  whose  analogue  is 
material  fire;  and  it  lights  heaven  and  burns  in  hell. 

Now  man  is  a  spark  of  the  divine  fire.  The  life  of  his 
being  is  fire.  It  burns  in  every  vein,  warms,  and  vitalizes 
his  whole  system — blow  it  out,  and  his  whole  body  is  cold 
and  dead.  Life  is  fire.  But  in  his  soul  the  source  of  life 
burns  the  celestial  fire.  The  devil  piles  the  carnal,  the 
boggy,  the  sensual,  upon  the  divine  fire  in  the  man  ;  and 
smothers,  and  extinguishes  it — it  lies  in  smoke  and  darkness 
— it  is  going  out.  What  do  we  need  ?  Fire.  Religion  is  a 
constitutional  thing.  God  has  promised  fires  from  heaven 
to  kindle  in  the  soul,  to  burn  up  the  rubbish.  Was  not  the 
Holy  Ghost  to  baptize  with  fire  ?  And  was  not  its  baptism 
one  of  fire  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  ?  And  was  not  its  sym- 
bol tongues  of  fire  ?  Is  not  religion  a  fire — life — a  fire-light  ? 
And  does  not  every  Christian  run  in  the  way  as  if  he  ran  on 
fire,  and  is  not  his  love  for  God  and  man  a  flame  ?  The 
difference  between  love  and  admiration  is,  the  one  is  a  flame, 
the  other  not. 

Religion  is  a  fire  which  warms,  so  hot  it  melts  the  nature, 


ISAIAH'S   VISION— DISCOURSE  I.  II 

and  the  stream  of  life  frozen  up  to  its  bottom,  till  it  was 
motionless,  in  the  Christian  is  melted,  and  flows  on,  singing 
over  its  pebbles  till  it  empties  into  the  ocean  of  God.  Re- 
ligion is  a  fire  which  consumes  the  carnal,  the  sensual,  and 
all  the  dross,  and  purifies  the  nature,  and  fuses  into  one  har- 
monious life  all  man's  varied  powers.  It  does  more  :  it  melts 
the  soul,  till  it  flows  into,  and  is  one  with  the  ocean  of  God's 
eternal  love — and  God  through  Christ  is  all  in  all.  Religion 
is  a  fire,  whose  first  flames  pour  a  flood  of  light  throughout 
the  courts  and  chambers  of  the  temple  of  conscience,  till 
not  an  impurity  or  sin,  though  small  as  an  atom,  can  float  in 
the  obscurest  corner  without  instant  discovery.  It  illuminates 
the  whole  character,  till  the  man  is  morally  transfigured.  He 
is  like  a  city  built  on  a  hill.  He  is  like  a  sun — he  shines. 
O,  Christian,  you  need  more  fire. 

Lift  up  your  head,  Isaiah — the  seraph  is  coming.  He  has 
a  live  coal  in  his  hand.  Blessed  be  God  !  he  took  it  off  the 
altar,  where  Jesus  died  a  ransom  for  sinners.  He  has  it  in 
his  hand.  What  part  is  unclean,  Isaiah  ?  "  My  lips,"  there  is 
where  he  applies  it.  He  touches  the  unclean  part.  Reli- 
gion has  nothing  to  do  with  symptoms — it  strikes  at  the 
cause.  He  "  touches  "  the  lips.  He  announces  to  the  con- 
sciousness the  work  done,  "  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away" 
— pardon — "  and  thy  sin  is  purged  " — regeneration — sancti- 
fication  begun.  More  fire,  more  light,  rise  higher,  Isaiah, 
till  body  sinks,  till  you  become  all  soul,  all  spirit,  all  fire,  all 
light,  all  love, — yes,  in  this  life.     Glory  ! 

Religion  is  a  live  coal — it  is  a  life,  not  a  body,  a  life,  not 
forms.  A  live  tree,  not  a  dead  tree.  A  live  man,  not  a 
dead  man.  A  living,  burning  love.  Do  you  love  Jesus  ?  I 
do  not  ask  you  if  you  admire  him,  but  do  you  love  him  ? 
The  love  of  religion  is  to  be  a  fire,  and  it  must  consume  all  of 
the  inordinate  self,  and  fuse  you  and  your  fellows  together  in 
God  ;  so  that  you  will  love  God  better  than  yourself  and 


12  SERMONS. 

your  fellows  as  well  as  yourself.  If  you  are  below  this 
standard,  brother,  you  may  be  saved,  but  if  you  are  up  to  it 
I  know  you  will  be  saved.     O,  God  !  for  a  baptism  of  fire. 

Isaiah  was  converted  now  and  ready  for  work.  He  had 
the  baptism  of  fire.  Brethren,  I  want  you  to  work  for  the 
salvation  of  souls.  You  must  first  have  the  fire.  It  must 
burn  in  your  bones.  You  must  love  God  burningly,  and 
men  the  same  way,  or  you  cannot  work.  O,  for  the  bap- 
tism of  fire  !  Like  Isaiah,  you  must  see  the  Lord.  You 
must  have  a  vision  of  the  Lord  in  your  inner  experience. 
A  viskm  of  the  Lord  ?  Yes,  brother.  With  Isaiah  it  was  an 
intuition  of  spirit,  that  looked  beyond  the  senses  and  saw 
God — you  can  have  it  by  faith.  I  want  you  to  be  an 
"  enthusiast."  Suppose  I  do — this  means  "  inspiration  " — 
to  be  an  "  enthusiast  "  is  "  a  man  with  God  in  him,"  says  an 
author.  I  want  no  enthusiast  in  the  sense  of  a  blind  zeal, 
but  an  enthusiast  who  sees  and  loves  the  Lord — an  enthusi- 
asm with  an  eye  in  it.  A  burning,  seeing,  acting  love — a 
live  coal.  O,  for  a  baptism  of  fire  !  Wake  up  !  miserable 
caricature  of  a  Christian,  with  your  head  bowed  down,  and 
moping  and  stumbling  along  in  the  way  of  others.  Wake 
up  !  a  little  more  love  in  you  and  you  will  walk  the  earth 
like  a  free  man.  Your  blood  will  be  full  of  celestial  fire,  and 
if  you  are  held  back  at  a  slow  pace  with  the  ark  of  God  you 
will  dance  before  it.     O,  for  a  baptism  of  fire  ! 


SERMON   II. 

isaiah's  vision  (discourse  ii.). 

"  In  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died  1  saw  also  the  Lord  sitting  upon  a 
throne,  high  and  lifted  up,  and  his  train  filled  the  temple. 

11  Above  it  stood  the  seraphims  ;  each  one  had  six  wings  ;  with  twain 
he  covered  his  face,  and  with  twain  he  covered  his  feet,  and  with  twain 
he  did  fly. 

"  And  one  cried  unto  another,  and  said,  Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  the  Lord  of 
hosts :  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory. 

"  And  the  posts  of  the  door  moved  at  the  voice  of  him  that  cried,  and 
the  whole  house  was  filled  with  smoke. 

11  Then  said  I,  woe  is  me !  for  I  am  undone  ;  because  I  am  a  man  of  un- 
clean lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips :  for  mine 
eyes  have  seen  the  King,  the  Lord  of  hosts. 

"  Then  flew  one  of  the  seraphims  unto  me,  having  a  live  coal  in  his  hand, 
which  he  had  taken  with  the  tongs  from  off  the  altar  : 

"And  he  laid  it  upon  my  mouth,  and  said,  Lo,  this  hath  touched  thy  lips  ; 
and  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away,  and  thy  sin  purged. 

"  Also  I  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord,  saying,  whom  shall  I  send,  and  who 
will  go  for  us  ?     Then  said  I,  Here  am  I  ;  send  me. 

"  And  he  said,  go,  and  tell  this  people,  Hear  ye  indeed,  but  understand 
not ;  and  see  ye  indeed,  but  perceive  not. 

"  Make  the  heart  of  this  people  fat,  and  make  their  eyes  heavy,  and  shut 
their  eyes  ;  lest  they  see  with  their  eyes,  and  hear  with  their  ears,  and  un- 
derstand with  their  heart,  and  convert,  and  be  healed." — Isa.  vi.  i-io. 

ISAIAH'S  commission  was  to  the  "people."  The  one 
God,  the  one  origin  of  every  intelligent  creature  in  the 
universe,  the  one  government  and  system  of  God,  gives  such 
a  oneness  and  identity  of  interests  to  the  whole  universe, 
that  the  cause  of  the  "  people  " — the  cause  of  humanity — 
was  the  cause  of  the  angels  as  well  as  God,  and  the  commis- 
sion of  the  preacher  to  the  people  begins,  "  who  will  go  for 
us  ?  "     But  the  whole  sentence  is,  "  Whom  shall  I  send,  and 


14  SERMONS. 

who  will  go  for  us  ?  "  while  the  cause  of  humanity  is  the  cause 
of  the  angels,  and  the  commission  reads,  "  who  will  go  for 
us  ?  "  yet  God  can  only  send  a  preacher,  and  save  a  sinner, 
therefore  He  says  "  Whom  shall  I  send  ?  " 

The  Bible  being  so  true  in  its  revelations,  and  therefore 
conforming  so  exactly  with  all  the  parts  of  the  one  system 
of  God,  scarcely  has  a  revelation  but  what  that  revelation 
will  apply  with  force  and  truth  to  several  facts  in  God's  sys- 
tem. Perfect  symmetric  truth  has  many  sides  to  it,  and  all 
its  sides  fit  in  with  the  great  surrounding  facts  of  the  uni- 
verse. Not  so  with  error,  being  a  forged  thing  outside  of  the 
facts,  it  can  only  be  made  to  fit  in  on  one  side.  It  can  only 
have  a  single  application.  God's  system  includes  all  truth, 
and  truth  harmonizes  in  all  of  its  parts,  and  what  is  true  to 
one  part,  is  true  with  reference  to  other  parts.  So  while 
"  I  "  and  "  ur/'  in  this  verse  may  apply  to  God  and  the  sera- 
phim, it  also  includes  the  idea  of  the  Trinity — the  "  I  "  the 
one  God,  the  "us"  the  three  persons.  So  says  John  and 
Paul.  John  in  his  gospel  alludes  to  this  vision,  and  recog- 
nizes the  presence  of  God  the  Son,  with  God  the  Father, 
when  he  says,  "  These  things  said  Esaias  when  he  saw  his 
glory  and  spake  of  him."  Paul  teaches  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
was  present  in  this  vision  ;  when  alluding  to  the  message 
given  to  the  prophet  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  verses  of  this 
chapter,  he  says,  "  Well  spake  the  Holy  Ghost  by  Esaias  the 
prophet,  saying  " — so  the  Son,  the  Thou,  the  Spirit,  the 
He,  are  included  in  the  Father,  the  I  of  this  vision.  The 
first,  second,  and  third  persons  are  included  in  the  one  God. 
The  persons  are  so  different  that  they  will  admit  of  a  plural 
form,  and  the  "us  "  is  used  ;  they  are  so  essentially  one,  that 
the  plural  of  the  second  and  third  is  dropped,  and  the  plural 
of  the  first  employed,  "  us  " — it  is  all  "  I  " — "  us."  There 
is  something  sublimely  awful  in  the  "I,"  the  "us,"  the  tri- 
personal  one  God.     God  is  not  simply  a  trinity  with  refer 


ISAIAH'S   VISION— DISCOURSE  II.  1 5 

ence  to  creation,  the  atonement,  or  to  any  of  His  relations, 
but  eternally  threefold  in  person.  He  is  from  all  eternity, 
from  the  necessity  of  His  being,  threefold  in  person. 

Now,  when  God  calls  for  a  messenger  to  the  "people,"  it 
is  the  call  of  every  person  in  the  Godhead — "Who  will  go 
for  us?" — the  Father,  the  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  Our  cause 
is  God's  cause,  and  every  person  in  the  Godhead  has  a  part 
in  redemption,  and  every  person  in  the  Godhead  sends  the 
preacher,  and  every  person  in  the  Godhead  sends  the 
church,  and  every  person  in  the  Godhead  invites  the  sinner. 
"  Whom  shall  I  send,  and  who  will  go  for  us  ?  "  God  wants 
agents  for  the  dissemination  of  His  glory ;  messengers  to 
carry  the  message  to  the  people.  He  does  not  call  on  Isaiah, 
but  makes  the  call  in  a  general  way.  God  loves  a  volun- 
teer service.  He  loves  for  the  will  of  man  to  choose  His 
service.  But  who  does  God  want  ?  A  book  ?  no  :  a  news-, 
paper  ?  no  :  armies  ?  no  :  civilizations  ?  no  :  the  elements 
of  nature  ?  the  lightning's  shaft  ?  no :  He  wants  a  person,  a 
live  person,  to  deal  with  persons.  Who  does  He  want?  a 
regenerated  person  to  go  and  deal  with  unregenerated  per- 
sons.    God  calls  for  volunteers. 

"  Here  am  I;  send  me.1'  Who  is  this  ?  why,  he  is  the  same 
man  who  was  crying  awhile  ago,  "  Woe  is  me ! "  What  a 
change  regeneration  makes  in  a  man.  He  is  anxious  to  do 
something  now.  Religion  is  a  grateful  thing.  God  had 
done  so  much  for  him,  now  he  wanted  to  do  something  for 
God.  Religion  is  essentially  missionary.  But  stop,  Isaiah, 
God  has  not  told  you  yet  what  He  wanted  you  to  do.  It 
makes  no  difference,  "  Here  am  I ;  send  me."  But  the  work 
may  be  something  which  you  cannot  do  at  all.  If  so  I  never 
would  have  heard  the  voice — no  man  ever  hears  God's  call 
to  another — God  would  never  call  me  to  do  impossibilities, 
"  Here  am  I  j  send  me."  But  stop,  Isaiah,  you  do  not  know 
where  God  wants  you  to  go ;   He  may  want  to  send  you  to 


l6  SERMONS. 

the  north  pole.  I  cannot  help  it,  that  is  God's  business; 
"  Here  am  I ;  send  me."  He  may  want  to  send  you  into  the 
house  of  your  enemy,  or  into  the  most  dangerous  and  disre- 
putable alley  in  Jerusalem,  you  know  not  how  great  the  cross. 
"Here  am  I;  send  me." 

Isaiah  asks  no  questions.  He  does  not  say  that  other 
persons  are  better  qualified  to  do  the  work,  all  this  was 
God's  business.  Isaiah  asks  no  questions  and  was  ready  to 
go.  Religion  asks  no  questions.  How  personal  religion  is. 
Isaiah  takes  the  matter  to  himself  instantly.  "  Here  am  I ; 
send  me  " — not  Brother  Wilson — but  me.  Where  are  you, 
Isaiah?  "  Here" — just  ready  to  go.  "Ifere,"  in  the  very 
place  and  at  the  very  time  of  my  pardon.  Some  Christians 
must  wait  a  week  or  two  after  their  conversion  before  they 
go  to  work.  It  is  all-important  that  you  commence  at  once. 
Rise  from  your  knees  and  begin. 

Now,  what  does  the  Lord  want  Isaiah  to  do  ?  God  did 
not  want  Isaiah  to  help  him  make  worlds ;  to  dance  with 
the  evening  star  to  the  music  of  the  spheres  on  the  azure 
pavement  of  the  sky ;  to  gird  on  the  belt  of  Orion  and  keep 
him  company  around  the  universe  ;  to  lead  fair  Silene  by 
the  hand  along  her  orbit ;  to  comfort  the  six  daughters  of 
Plione  for  the  lost  Pleiad,  and  to  hold  up  their  mourning 
train ;  no,  God  wanted  him  to  go  and  preach  to  the  people. 
Not  to  prepare  his  own  message,  not  to  discourse  on  poli- 
tics, ethics,  philosophy ;  not  to  retail  his  own  wares  ;  no,  God 
gives  him  his  message  as  He  gives  every  preacher,  and 
every  Christian  whom  He  sends  out  to  work — "  Go  and  tell 
this  people  " — and  his  message  is  recorded  in  the  book  of 
his  prophecy. 

And  God  tells  him  what  will  be  the  effect  of  his  preaching, 
that  he  will  "  make  the  heart  of  the  people  fat,  their  ears 
heavy,  and  shut  their  eyes  ;  "  and  that  while  his  message  was 
intended  for  the  people's  benefit,  by  resisting  it  they  would 


ISAIAH'S  VISION— DISCOURSE  II.  1 7 

grow  harder  and  be  injured.  And  such  is  the  effect  of  every 
gospel  sermon,  and  every  appeal  you  make  to  the  sinner — if 
not  heeded,  will  harden  and  destroy  more  terribly  in  hell. 
Each  minister — and  all  are  ministers  in  their  spheres — is  a 
minister  of  death  as  well  as  life.  Everything  which  is  used 
by  God  to  do  the  sinner  good,  if  misused  does  him  harm. 
If  he  resists  a  good  influence,  it  but  hardens  and  makes  him 
more  incorrigible.  Also  he  will  have  to  account  for  the  mis- 
use of  the  intended  good.  The  preached  gospel  saves  or 
hardens.  The  preacher  will  be  an  instrument  in  saving  or 
damning  you.  You  cannot  avoid  the  issue  by  staying  away 
from  church.  The  refusal  to  honor  God  by  this  means  of 
grace  will  equally  condemn  you.  Your  only  hope  to  be  saved 
at  all,  almost,  is  to  come  to  church.  You  may  be  saved  if 
you  come,  you  are  almost  certain  to  be  lost  if  you  do  not. 
But  is  it  true,  that  if  the  means  appointed  to  save,  if  they 
do  not  save,  if  they  are  disappointed  in  their  intended  effect, 
but  turn  themselves  into  curses  ?  Yes,  they  certainly  do  ; 
such  was  the  effect  upon  Israel  when  rejecting  God's 
prophets. 

The  prayers  which  are  offered  up  for  you,  ascending  like 
incense  from  the  altar  of  devotion, — unless,  like  the  ascend- 
ing vapors  they  return  in  fructifying  showers  upon  your 
heads — will  gather  into  a  cloud  of  darkness,  instinct  with 
fires,  charged  with  thunder,  and  borne  along  upon  the  hot 
breath  of  Jehovah's  wrath,  will  shut  out  the  light  of  day,  and 
discharge  from  its  awful  reservoirs,  tempests,  and  floods,  and 
hail,  and  wo — while  the  disturbed  air  will  generate  whirlwinds 
which  will  blow  you  into  Tophet — pitilessly  pelted  by  a  storm 
which  will  never  know  any  abatement.  The  tears  of  the 
father,  the  mother,  the  child,  the  friend,  dropped  in  the  closet, 
in  your  behalf,  if  you  remain  incorrigible,  bottled  up  by  God 
in  one  of  the  apocalyptic  vials,  will  be  emptied  upon  your 
naked  soul,  and  strange  horrors  will  seize  you,  and  untold 


l8  SERMONS. 

agonies  will  shake  you.  These  tears  will  form  a  lake  of  un- 
quenchable burnings  for  all  the  wept  for,  yet  lost  sinners. 

Every  gospel  sermon  you  have  heard,  if  unheeded,  will 
stand  at  the  Judgment  as  your  accuser.  The  sermon  of  this 
morning  will  be  with  them.  I  will  testify  that  even  in  this 
regard  you  were  faithfully  warned.  Every  sermon  I  preach, 
and  every  sermon  you  hear,  will  be  at  the  Judgment  before 
us.  But  I  dare  not  quit,  and  you  dare  not  refuse  to  hear. 
Every  opportunity  you  have  slighted  will  be  your  accuser. 
Every  moment  of  time  you  have  not  used  for  the  saving  of 
your  souls,  or  you  have  let  pass  by  without  repentance,  is  a 
moment  murdered,  and  its  ghost  also  will  be  at  the  Judg- 
ment. The  murdered  moments  of  all  your  murdered  years 
will  be  there — evoked  at  the  instant  God  calls  your  name, 
they  will  thicken  the  air,  and  a  million  of  hollow  eyes  will 
glower  at  you,  and  a  million  of  shadowy  fingers  will  point  at 
you,  and  a  million  of  ghastly  heads  crowding  together  will 
environ  you — and  each  armed  with  a  whip  of  fire,  at  God's 
bidding,  will  lash  you  from  the  Judgment  seat  down  the 
steeps  of  death,  and  the  rustle  of  their  wings  will  fill  hell,  and 
the  Babel  of  their  voices  will  madden  you  forever. 

All  blessings  here,  if  abused,  will  be  curses  in  eternity. 
I  would  rather  see  the  ugliest  face  of  the  ugliest  fiend  in 
hell,  than  the  accusing  face  of  an  injured  friend.  O,  to  stand 
and  see  the  face  of  Jesus  in  that  day — the  accusing  face  of 
incarnate  love.  Is  my  message  to-day,  like  the  message  of 
Isaiah,  "  Go,  tell  this  people,  Hear  ye  indeed,  but  under- 
stand not ;  and  see  ye  indeed,  but  perceive  not.  Make  the 
heart  of  this  people  fat,  and  make  their  ears  heavy,  and  shut 
their  eyes ;  lest  they  see  with  their  eyes,  and  hear  with  their 
ears,  and  understand  with  their  hearts,  and  convert,  and  be 
healed"? 


SERMON   III. 

A    DISEASE  ;    A  PHYSICIAN  ;    A  REMEDY  ;    A  CURE  ;    A    REASON. 

"  Is  there  no  balm  in  Gilead?  is  there  no  physician  there  ?  Why  then  is 
not  the  health  of  the  daughter  of  my  people  recovered  ?  " — Jer.  viii.  22. 

THE  children  of  Israel  are  here  represented  by  the 
prophet  as  having  a  disease  which  the  well-known  balm 
of  Gilead  would  cure,  if  properly  administered  by  a  compe- 
tent physician.  "  Why  then,"  he  very  mournfully  queries, 
"is  not  the  daughter  of  my  people  recovered  ?  "  The  reason 
was  obvious  :  they  would  not  apply  to  the  physician,  or  use 
the  remedy.  The  whole  was  figurative,  and  had  special  ref- 
erence to  their  spiritual  state.  As  figurative,  and  of  general 
application,  I  will  use  it  to-day ;  discussing  the  text  with  the 
following  analysis  :  a  disease  ;  a  physician  ;  a  remedy  ;  a 
cure  ;  a  reason. 

I.  A  Disease. — Whenever  a  living  organization  is  disor- 
dered, and  it  is  disturbed  or  interrupted  in  the  natural  exer- 
cise of  its  constitutional  functions,  the  state  of  that  organiza- 
tion is  properly  expressed  by  the  word  disease — it  is  diseased. 
Man  was  made  constitutionally  agreeing  with  archetypal  con- 
stitutional God,  and  with  all  things  under  all  laws.  The  moral 
constitution  of  man  is  disordered  in  the  natural  exercise  of  its 
functions  by  sin.  Sin  produces  spiritual  disease.  Man  is 
spiritually  diseased.  But  let  us  form  our  diagnosis  from  the 
symptoms  :  He  is  false  to  all  his  relations — false  to  God, 
his  fellows,  himself — out  of  harmony  with  universal  being. 
His  understanding  is  feeble  and  benighted,  especially  with 


20  SERMONS. 

reference  to  religious  matters  ;  his  memory  is  weak  and 
treacherous,  often  stupidly  forgetting  his  duty  and  interest  . 
his  imagination  is  corrupt,  sentimentally  debauched,  or  ex- 
travagantly dreamy.  His  reason  as  often  leads  him  into  er- 
ror as  into  truth  ;  his  will  is  unreasonably  and  senselessly  ob- 
stinate ;  his  conscience  is  obdurate  and  slow ;  his  affections 
defective,  or  sweeping  in  whirlwinds  of  passion  upon  the 
wildest  extremes.  He  is  more  or  less  selfish,  proud,  cove- 
tous, envious,  impatient,  ungrateful,  jealous,  hypocritical,  re- 
vengeful, malicious,  perfidious,  false,  treacherous,  cruel,  su- 
perstitious, and  bigoted — bigoted  often  in  the  very  religion 
he  professes.  Created  by  a  holy  God,  for  holy  ends,  he  sins 
with  his  body,  heart,  and  mind — head,  face,  eyes,  ears,  lips, 
tongue,  palate,  stomach,  arms,  hands,  and  feet.  Is  he  not 
diseased?  Sin  is<4:he  violation  of  law,  and  law  is  the  basis 
of  order;  therefore  to  be  a  sinner  is  to  be  in  a  state  of  dis- 
order, hence  diseased.  Is  this  man's  normal  state  ?  Is 
this  the  creature  God  made  and  pronounced  "  Good  "  ?  No. 
This  disease  is  hereditary,  universal,  fatal,  and  incurable 
by  man. — It  is  hereditary.  Radically,  it  is  not  a  contagious 
disease,  neither  is  it  radically  infectious — though  in  some 
senses  it  is  both — but  it  is  truthfully  a  hereditary  disease,  de- 
scending from  parent  to  child.  It  is  a  necessary  and  funda- 
mental law  of  nature  that  like  will  beget  like.  Such  a  law 
is  essential  to  the  order  and  harmony  of  things,  essential  to 
natural  progress,  essential  to  the  ideas  of  completion  and 
perfection.  Trees  and  plants  beget  their  kind  ;  animals  be- 
get their  kind — in  appearance,  nature,  and  qualities  ;  man 
begets  his  kind,  like  begetting  like,  therefore  we  are  often 
told  in  Scripture  of  obliquities  of  character  descending  from 
the  parents  to  the  children,  through  several  generations. 
Our  first  parents  sinned,  and  their  sin  diseased  their  consti- 
tutions ;  and  according  to  the  laws  of  cause  and  effect,  like 
begetting  like,  their  diseased  constitutions  descended  to  their 


DISEASE  AND    PHYSICIAN.  21 

children.  Their  disease  was  constitutional,  and  only  consti- 
tutional diseases  are  hereditary ;  being  constitutional  they 
are  always  hereditary ;  therefore,  their  constitutional  disease 
affected  without  exception  all  their  descendants.  Analogous 
cases  might  be  cited  in  the  pathological  part  of  the  science 
of  medicine.  In  the  descent  of  this  hereditary  disease  from 
our  first  parents  to  us,  the  responsibility  of  their  personal 
acts  remained  with  themselves — the  constitutional  disease 
descended  without  the  responsibility  of  its  original  contrac- 
tion.    We  are  only  responsible  for  our  personal  acts. 

//  is  universal. — It  is  not  an  endemic,  peculiar  to  the 
people  of  one  country  ;  it  is  not  an  epidemic,  affecting  great 
numbers  of  people,  it  is  more  ;  it  is  a  pandemic — pas,  pan, 
all,  demos,  people — affecting  all  people — peoples  of  all  ages, 
from  Adam  to  now.  Not  one  exception  can  be  found  in 
the  history  of  any  race.  Is  the  disease  of  sin  universal  ? 
It  could  not  be  otherwise  from  the  philosophically  legal 
principle  of  hereditary  transmission,  if  all  mankind  descended 
from  one  common  parentage,  and  that  parentage  was  con- 
stitutionally diseased.  Is  it  universal  ?  Read  history.  It 
is  but  a  record  of  men's  vices — the  stage  upon  which  all  men 
have  played  their  parts  in  the  mournful  drama  of  human  life, 
and  left  the  footprints  of  sin  as  their  appropriate  memorials. 
The  history  of  one  nation  and  age,  is  the  history  of  all  na- 
tions and  ages. 

Is  it  universal  ?  Read  the  laws  of  all  nations  and  ages. 
They  are  but  human  statutes  to  restrain  and  suppress  uni- 
versal iniquity.  The  universality  of  human  laws,  is  evidence 
of  the  universality  of  sin.  Is  it  universal?  Go  to  Europe, 
Asia,  Africa,  America  ;  go  to  the  city,  the  country  ;  the 
palace,  the  hovel ;  the  abodes  of  civilization,  the  abodes  of 
barbarism  ;  it  is  seen  in  the  girl,  the  boy,  the  woman,  the 
man,  the  aged.  It  is  seen  in  the  king,  the  subject ;  the 
master,  the  servant ;  the  rich,  the  poor ;  the   learned,  the 


22  SERMONS. 

unlearned.  Are  graves,  battlefields,  widows,  orphans,  xnd 
suffering  universal  ?  Then  it  is.  Born  in  hell,  it  rushed  to 
earth  and  spread  wide  its  wings  over  all  climes,  oriental  and 
occidental,  from  pole  to  pole,  dropping  pestilence  from  its 
sable  plumes  till  the  whole  earth  is  sick. 

//  is  fatal. — I  mean  such  is  its  philosophical  tendency — 
ultimating  in  a  final  fatality.  This  disease  is  fatal,  because 
it  implies  a  derangement  of  the  vital  functions  of  spiritual 
life,  ultimating  necessarily  in  a  final  destruction  of  spiritual 
life  itself,  producing  spiritual  death.  The  principle  of  sin 
being  unbelief,  its  essence  enmity  to  God,  its  development 
being  the  transgression  of  law,  it  naturally  destroys  faith  in 
God  the  principle  of  spiritual  life,  love  to  God  the  essence 
of  spiritual  life,  and  obedience  to  God  the  development  of 
spiritual  life.  Every  element  of  spiritual  life  depends  upon 
man's  constant  communion  with  God,  and  sin  philosophically 
makes  communion  with  God  impossible. 

//  is  incurable  by  man. — i.  Because  it  is  a  disease  of 
man's  nature — that  which  constitutes  himself.  It  is  a  con- 
stitutional disease.  Being  constitutional  all  the  powers  of 
man  are  involved,  so  that  there  is  no  individual  power  free 
upon  whose  nature  or  action  any  system  of  reformation  or 
recovery  can  be  founded,  by  any  power  save  that  which 
made  him. 

2.  Man's  disease  being  one  of  nature  and  constitution, 
he  cannot  be  cured  without  a  change  of  nature  and  con- 
stitution— the  change  of  that  constitutional  entity  which 
is  the  background  of  his  feelings,  the  substratum  of  his 
powers,  the  ground  of  his  identity,  the  substance  of  himself. 
He  cannot  be  cured  without  a  change  equivalent  to  a  new 
generation,  new  conception  and  new  birth — without  a  change 
equivalent  to  being  "born  again,"  as  Christ  expresses  it. 
Such  a  change  can  only  be  effected  by  the  power  which 
made  him.     For  a  man  to  effect  such  a  change  in  himself, 


DISEASE   AND    PHYSICIAN.  23 

he  must  first  be  able  to  destroy  himself,  then  be  able  to  re- 
produce himself  upon  the  basis  of  a  higher  existence.  To 
say  nothing  of  other  insuperable  difficulties,  he  must  exist 
after  he  is  destroyed  that  a  power  might  be  left  to  reproduce 
himself.  Self-redemption  or  self-regeneration  is  the  greatest 
of  absurdities.  The  power  necessary  to  change  man's  na- 
ture, and  effect  a  radical  cure  of  his  disease,  must  proceed 
from  a  source  extrinsic  to  himself.  Had  the  world  known 
this  we  would  have  been  spared  much  philosophic  lumber; 
and  men  would  not  have  tried  to  accomplish  that  which 
God  and  nature  said  was  impossible.  I  have  presented  you 
an  awful  disease,  hereditary,  universal,  fatal  and  incurable  by 
man.     I  now  present  you  : 

II.  A  Physician. — He  is  infinite  in  his  knowledge.  He 
knows  all  about  God,  His  law,  His  system,  His  government, 
the  unity  and  relations  of  universal  being.  He  knows  all 
about  man,  his  origin,  nature,  constitution,  powers,  relations, 
influences,  duties  and  destiny.  He  knows  all  about  man's 
disease,  its  nature,  its  effects,  its  causes,  and  all  the  reme- 
dies necessary  for  his  cure.  He  is  infinite  in  His  wisdom. 
As  his  wisdom  is  his  knowledge  in  the  concrete,  if  his  knowl- 
edge is  infinite  his  wisdom  must  be.  Wisdom  is  knowl- 
edge in  action.  This  Physician  has  actually  and  effectively 
brought  his  vast  fund  of  knowledge  into  exercise  in  the 
scheme  of  Redemption,  selecting  the  best  remedies,  and  em- 
ploying the  best  means,  and  agents  for  their  application,  that 
man  might  be  cured.  Such  is  wisdom.  He  is  infinite  in  the 
means  at  his  command.  The  stupendous  energies  of  his 
own  being,  the  Holy  Ghost,  angels,  men,  principles,  things, 
are  but  his  employees  to  fulfil  his  plans.  The  resources  of 
heaven,  earth,  the  universe,  are  his.  The  treasuries  of  im- 
mensity are  his.  He  has  under  his  control  every  dispensa 
tion  and  event  of  Providence  to  accomplish  the  salvation  of 
sinners. 


24  SERMONS. 

He  is  equitable  in  his  ministrations. — He  is  impartial ; 
learning,  wealth,  position,  influence  him  not.  Wherever  the 
disease  is  there  he  is.  Voltaire  said  in  a  letter  to  Frederick 
of  Prussia,  who  were  both  infidels,  "  Give  us  the  princes  and 
philosophers,  and  we  freely  leave  the  lower  class  to  the  fish- 
ermen and  tent  makers."  Many  of  the  apostles  were  fisher- 
men, and  Paul  was  a  tent  maker.  But  listen  to  the  Physi- 
cian of  Gilead  :  "  Go  and  tell  John,  the  poor  have  the  gospel 
preached  unto  them."  Your  humble  home,  your  plain  garb, 
your  scanty  board,  and  hard  bed,  do  not  deprive  you  of  the 
impartial  attendance  of  the  world's  physician.  O,  had  I  the 
voice  of  an  archangel,  I  would  send  it  breaking  with  joy 
through  every  hovel  in  our  extended  country,  "  The  poor 
have  the  gospel  preached  unto  them."  The  nature  and 
genius  of  our  Christianity  require  impartiality. 

He  is  free  of  charge,  as  well  as  equitable,  in  his  ministra- 
tions. Free  of  charge  his  ministrations  must  be  if  impartial. 
They  are  so  from  the  very  necessity  of  the  case.  In  all  pur- 
chases there  is  an  equivalent  value  between  the  thing  pur- 
chased, and  the  price  paid  for  it.  This  idea  of  equivalency 
is  involved  in  all  trade.  In  the  nature  and  contraction  of 
this  fearful  disease  there  is  an  infinite  criminality  entailed 
upon  the  sinner.  The  guilt  of  an  action  consists  in  its  being 
a  violation  of  an  obligation  ;  man's  obligations  to  God,  how- 
ever estimated,  are  infinite  ;  hence  the  guilt  of  sin  is  infinite. 
If  the  guilt  of  sin  is  infinite,  the  remedy  to  cure  it  must  be 
infinite.  In  other  words,  the  nature  and  medicinal  proper- 
ties of  the  remedy  must  be  equal  to  the  nature  and  malig- 
nancy of  the  disease.  According  to  the  principle  of  equiva- 
lency in  trade,  between  the  thing  bought  and  the  price  paid 
for  it,  man  must  pay  a  price  equal  to  the  nature  of  the  rem- 
edy, and  equal  to  the  corresponding  value  of  the  physician's 
services  who  administers  it.  Can  he  do  it  ?  Finite  in  his 
nature,  finite  in  his  resources,  can  he  pay  a  price  of  infinite 


DISEASE  AND   PHYSICIAN.  2$ 

value  ?  No  ;  if  not  bought  by  one  whose  merits  are  infinite, 
therefore  equal  to  man's  demerits,  and  presented  to  man  as 
a  gift,  man's  disease  is  incurable. 

He  is  always  easily  accessible. — However  great  his  quali- 
fications, without  accessibility,  we  would  not  be  benefited — 
but  his  language  is :  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  are  weary  * 
and  heavy  ladened,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  Not  only  ac- 
cessible, but  easily  accessible.  Not  embarrassed  with  courtly 
forms,  polite  introductions,  or  the  mediation  and  attention 
of  ushers — no,  but  easily  accessible.  Not  only  easily  accessi- 
ble, but  always  easily  accessible.  His  attention  upon  others 
never  prevents  his  immediate  attention  to  your  smallest 
wants. 

III.  A  Remedy. — It  was  instituted  by  God.  Its  origin  is 
not  earthly.  It  is  not  the  result  of  human  learning,  the  ward 
of  human  reason,  the  triumph  of  human  philosophy.  No  !  it 
is  the  result  of  Divine  wisdom,  the  transcript  of  God's  coun- 
sels, the  embodied  duplicate  of  God's  perfections,  the  mas- 
terpiece of  His  mind,  the  child  of  Heaven.  It  is  infallible 
in  its  curative  powers.  The  disease  is  sin.  Is  the  guilt  of 
sin  infinite  ?  Christ's  merits  are  infinite.  Does  the  law  re- 
quire suffering  and  death  ?  Christ  has  suffered  and  died. 
Do  the  merits  of  man  weigh  too  lightly  in  the  scales  of 
Divine  Justice  ?  Christ's  merits  make  up  the  lack,  and  in- 
cline the  beam  to -salvation's  level.  The  merits  of  Christ  are 
as  far  above  law,  as  the  demerits  of  man  are  below  it,  and 
by  the  philosophic  action  of  faith  upon  the  part  of  the  crea- 
ture, the  two  are  united,  and  an  equilibrium  and  status  are 
attained  according  to  the  highest  standard  of  Justice,  and 
satisfactory  to  its  highest  claims.  Does  God's  truth  require 
the  sinner's  death  ?  The  merits  of  Christ  are  equal  to  the  ag- 
gregated demerits  of  the  world,  and  according  to  the  legal  prin- 
ciples of  equivalency  and  substitution  fulfil  the  requirement 

*   KOTTtUVTeS. 


26  SERMONS. 

Does  the  Divine  holiness  assert  its  claims  ?  It  has  been 
fully  illustrated  in  the  sufferings  and  death  of  a  sacrifice,  and 
provisions  of  purification  are  made  to  rise  to  its  highest  de- 
mands. Does  God's  majesty  scorn  the  sinner?  The  sinner 
is  elevated  by  the  price  paid  for  his  redemption.  Has  man 
sinned  ?  Is  the  law  unable  to  forgive  ?  Does  the  law  re- 
main in  full  force  ?  Is  man  unable  to  recall  his  sin  ?  And 
is  God  incompetent  to  pardon  from  mere  prerogative  ?  This 
remedy  has  satisfied  the  law,  maintains  its  authority  and 
majesty,  and  has  placed  the  seal  of  forgiveness  in  the  hand 
of  God,  and  administers  pardon  to  the  sinner.  Has  sin  cor- 
rupted the  soul,  and  left  its  hellish  contagion  skulking  in  the 
fractures,  and  cleaving  to  the  walls  of  its  terrestrial  temple  ? 
This  remedy  neutralizes  the  poison,  and  tracks  with  deter- 
gent  wing  and  curative  power  every  nerve  and  vein  which 
sin  has  envenomed,  purifies  the  soul,  and  out-streaming 
sanctifies  the  body.  Do  idiosyncrasies  of  mind,  peculiarities 
of  constitution,  and  abnormal  developments  of  bodily  passion 
furnish  strongholds  for  sin  j  and  like  other  diseases,  does  it 
fasten  its  fangs  more  deeply  in  constitutional  weaknesses  ? 
This  remedy  has  power  sufficient  to  upheave  the  strongest 
ramparts  of  iniquity,  rout  the  monster,  and  pour  a  flood  of 
cleansing  grace  and  conserving  strength  into  the  weakest 
points  of  character. 

Has  sin  distracted  soul  and  body,  reversed  man's  nature, 
destroyed  the  harmony  of  his  powers,  and  made  him  eternally 
unhappy  ?  This  remedy  eliminates  the  disease,  restores  the 
order  of  his  constitutional  being,  tranquillizes  his  powers,  and 
makes  him  constitutionally  happy.  It  fills  him  brim-full  of 
mercy,  it  raises  the  spirit,  it  puts  the  God  back  into  man. 
Is  the  throne  of  sin  in  the  nature  ?  It  is  there  this  remedy 
strikes,  tears  down  the  carnal  nature  and  erects  a  spiritual 
one,  a  fair  and  beautiful  structure  fit  for  the  temple  of  God. 
It  obliterates  all  the  moral  effects  of  sin,  and  in  their  room 


DISEASE  AND   PHYSICIAN.  2J 

inimitably  pencils  the  image  of  God  upon  the  soul,  and  writes 
His  blessed  "  new  name  "  there. 

Sin  sundered  the  cord  of  love,  the  centripetal  force  which 
held  man  to  God  his  vital  centre,  and  his  independent  exis- 
tence the  centrifugal  and  counterbalancing  force  flung  him 
travelling  out  from  God  into  immeasurable  darkness.  Dis- 
orbed,  and  away  from  the  source  of  all  light,  he  wandered  in 
derangement  through  the  interminable  fields  and  leagues  of 
night — lost,  erratic,  ungoverned,  miserable.  But  this  remedy 
readjusts  man's  sundered  and  distracted  relations  to  univer- 
sal being,  and  fastens  again  the  cord  of  love,  cemented  by 
the  blood  of  Jesus,  and  brings  the  wandering  orb  rolling  back 
in  reclaimed  glory  to  its  native  orbit,  to  revolve  in  eternal 
brotherhood  and  fraternal  love  with  its  fellows  around  the 
throne  of  God  forever. 

It  is  infallible  to  cure.  Infallible  to  cure  ?  eAsk  its 
author,  God.  Infallible  to  cure  ?  The  earthquake  and  dark- 
ness of  Calvary,  the  fiery  tongues  of  Pentecost  answer  you. 
Infallible  to  cure  ?  A  thousand  burning  stakes  and  dying 
beds  answer  you.  Infallible  to  cure  ?  Universal  Christen- 
dom answers  you  in  the  affirmative,  and  a  million  converts 
starting  into  life  from  the  altar  of  prayer  defy  hell  to  dispute 
it.  Saints  in  heaven,  and  Christians  on  earth  are  its  witnesses 
■ — we  are  its  witnesses. 

It  is  universal  in  its  applicability.  There  are  thirteen 
hundred  millions  of  human  beings  now  living.  All  of  them 
by  nature  sinners.  Some  of  them  are  enlightened,  some  are 
civilized,  some  are  barbarians,  some  are  pagans ;  some  are 
learned,  others  unlearned;  some  are  children,  some  are 
adults,  others  hoary  and  trembling  with  age  ;  some  are  rich, 
others  poor  ;  some  are  princes  and  masters,  others  subjects 
and  servants  ;  some  have  pursuits  and  professions,  others 
none.  Yet  in  all  this  vast  throng  no  two  are  alike.  They 
differ  in  body,  differ  in  mind,  differ  in  feeling,  differ  in  attain- 


28  SERMONS. 

ments,  differ  in  morals,  differ  in  theory,  differ  in  practice. 
Every  unit  in  the  thirteen  hundred  millions  of  our  tremen- 
dous race  possesses  characteristics  and  peculiarities  of  mind, 
character,  and  condition,  which  distinguish  it  from  all  the 
race.  In  other  words,  in  the  thirteen  hundred  millions  of 
human  beings,  there  are  thirteen  hundred  millions  of  indi- 
vidual varieties.  Yet  this  remedy  is  adapted  in  its  nature  to 
cure  all  of  them. 

What  a  vast  remedy !  Spreading  itself  over  a  densely 
populated  world,  preserving  its  unity  as  a  system,  yet  adapt- 
ing itself  pertinently  and  perfectly  to  every  peculiarity  of 
mind,  soul,  nature,  character,  and  condition  of  every  indi- 
vidual in  the  grand  aggregate.  Still  this  is  but  a  glimpse  at 
its  universality.  All  ages  have  been  distinguished  from  all 
former  and  subsequent  ages  by  the  peculiarities  of  their  co- 
temporary  generation.  What  an  immensity  is  imparted  to 
the  universality  of  Redemption's  plan,  as  a  remedy  commen- 
surate with  the  ravages  of  a  universal  disease.  It  is  a  remedy 
which  stretches  its  wing  over  all  time,  and  adapts  itself  to 
all  peculiar  wants,  of  all  peculiar  men,  of  all  peculiar  ages, 
from  Adam  till  now,  and  till  the  Judgment. 

IV.  A  Cure. — This  remedy  can  cure.  This  cure  is  radi- 
cal :  Because  the  remedy  strikes  at  the  root  of  the  disease 
and  removes  its  cause — radical,  radix,  a  root.  This  remedy 
is  not  a  mere  palliative ;  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  symptoms 
or  effects,  but  strikes  beyond  the  intellect,  the  sensibilities, 
right  at  sin,  the  cause,  lodged  in  the  nature,  and  drags  it 
struggling  and  howling  out  of  the  temple  of  God,  and  flings 
it  into  hell.  The  cause  of  the  disease  gone,  the  constitution 
with  its  tendencies,  desires,  aspirations,  and  affections,  soon 
healthily  adjusts  itself,  and  the  man  is  cured — he  is  a  new 
creature.  The  skill  of  the  physician,  and  the  power  of  the 
remedy  are  equal  to  the  disease.  Are  you  healed  ?  No. 
Whv  not  ?     "  Is   there   no  balm    in  Gilead  ?     Is  there  no 


DISEASE  AND   PHYSICIAN.  29 

physician  there  ?  "  This  brings  us  to  the  last  proposition  in 
the  analysis. 

V.  A  Reason. — To  assign  a  sensible  reason  why  men  are 
not  healed,  is  certainly  very  difficult.  They  are  afflicted 
with  a  disease  which  is  hereditary ;  there  is  a  physician  pre- 
sented to  them  infinite  in  knowledge,  with  a  remedy  institu- 
ted by  God,  and  a  promised  cure,  radical  in  nature  ;  "  Why, 
then,  is  not  the  health  of  the  daughter  of  my  people  recov- 
ered?" Why?  Because  they  will  not  apply  to  the  physi- 
cian nor  use  the  remedy — because  they  will  not.  It  is  a  de- 
liberate act  of  rejection  performed  as  a  matter  of  choice. 
All  reasons  why  men  are  not  healed  group  themselves  under 
this  one — generic  one — they  will  not.  But  I  will  be  more 
specific.     Why  will  not  men  be  religious  ? 

1.  Because  some  men  have  doubts  about  the  truth  of 
Christianity.  Such  doubts  are  generally  the  result  of  igno- 
rance of  the  evidences  and  nature  of  Christianity.  If  it  was 
a  matter  which  affected  their  temporal  interests,  they  would 
have  carefully  and  impartially  examined  it,  with  all  the  helps 
they  could  employ,  long  ago.  But,  inasmuch  as  it  is  religion 
and  not  money,  and  relates  to  the  soul  rather  than  the 
stomach,  to  eternity  more  particularly  than  to  time  ;  and  as 
this  life  is  the  whole  of  man's  existence,  and  if  a  man  grati- 
fies every  want  now  it  makes  no  difference  about  the  future 
— though  that  future  might  happen  to  be  unending ;  they 
have  so  little  interest  in  Christianity,  and  care  so  little  about 
it,  they  have  never  thought  it  worth  the  while  to  study  whether 
these  things  are  so  or  not.  But  it  does  seem  that  some  men 
would  reason  this  way  :  "  I  had  better  accept  Christianity, 
as  I  have  nothing  better.  If  it  should  happen  to  be  untrue 
I  am  not  injured  by  the  acceptance  ;  if  it  should  happen  to 
be  true,  however,  and  I  do  not  accept  it,  I  am  ruined  for- 
ever." 

Go  home,  friend,  and  study  it — and  remember  you  gain 


30  SERMONS. 

nothing  if  you  prove  it  false — study  it  impartially.  If  you 
find  anything  in  it  you  cannot  understand,  do  not  therefore 
reject  the  whole  system.  You  do  not  reject  the  science  of 
Chemistry  because  there  are  affinities  you  cannot  under- 
stand. You  give  the  unexplainable  in  Science  the  advantage 
of  the  explainable,  and  receive  the  whole  as  truth  ;  but  some 
men  in  religion  act  conversely,  they  give  the  explainable  the 
disadvantage  of  the  unexplainable,  and  reject  both  as  false. 
Act  in  religion  as  you  do  in  everything  else.  Christianity 
lays  down  its  evidences,  and  upon  them  demands  the  faith 
of  mankind.  That  it  has  lain  down  a  sufficiency  of  evidence 
is  clear  from  the  fact  that  the  most  intelligent  of  mankind 
have  believed  it.  It  has  nothing  to  gain  or  lose  by  your  dis- 
belief. Though  you  may  conscientiously  disbelieve  it,  yet 
this  will  not  relieve  you  in  the  Judgment  from  the  penalty  of 
unbelief.  God  has  given  you  what  He  regards  a  sufficiency 
of  evidence,  and  He  will  regard  your  unbelief  as  wilful. 

2.  Because  some  men  love  sin  so  well.  It  does  seem  that 
the  love  of  some  men  for  sin  is  so  great,  they  would  rather 
enjoy  it  here  for  a  season  and  suffer  eternal  punishment,  than 
to  deny  themselves  here  for  a  season  and  enjoy  greater  hap- 
piness even  in  this  world  and  eternal  happiness  hereafter. 

3.  Because  some  men  are  so  indolent  they  dislike  the 
work  of  repentance.  A  lazy  man  never  dreaded  the  harvest 
in  midsummer  more  than  they  dread  to  repent.  They  seem 
to  prefer  to  sit  down  in  idleness  here  and  run  the  risk  of 
working  in  the  forges  of  hell  forever,  than  to  work  here  and 
rest  in  heaven  forever. 

4.  Because  some  men  are  wedded  to  the  pleasures  of  this 
world.  It  does  seem  that  they  would  prefer  to  dance  in  the 
maddened  and  sensual  whirl  of  worldly  pleasures,  than  to 
career  amid  the  beauties  of  heaven  and  around  the  throne 
of  God.  It  does  seem  they  would  rather  join  in  the  baccha- 
nalian shouts  of  reprobates  accursed,  then  go  to  hell,  than 


DISEASE  AND   PHYSICIAN.  3 1 

to  exchange  them  for  higher  pleasures  here,  then  go  to  heaven 
and  be  happy  forever.  The  Christian  is  happier  here  than 
the  sinner — I  can  prove  it  by  one  hundred  witnesses  in  this 
congregation. 

5.  Because  some  men  love  to  make  money  so  well  that 
they  cannot  spare  the  time  to  be  religious.  Behold  their 
folly  !  Time  was  given  for  a  purpose  ;  they  pervert  it,  neglect 
the  true  riches,  and  go  to  hell  poor,  when  they  might  be  rich 
forever. 

6.  Because  some  men  are  so  senselessly  proud  they  would 
rather  carry  a  rankling  disease  all  their  days,  and  go  to  hell 
with  it,  than  simply  to  ask  the  Physician  of  Gilead  to  do  for 
them  what  they  are  too  proud  to  acknowledge  they  cannot 
do  for  themselves. 

7.  Because  it  is  a  remedy  they  cannot  buy.  If  church 
subscriptions,  church  attendance,  church  pride,  or  some 
great  thing  or  work,  could  have  purchased  it  they  would  have 
been  religious  long  ago.  Naaman  refused  to  use  the  means 
for  the  cure  of  his  leprosy,  because  of  its  simplicity  ;  the 
prophet  had  sent  him  word  to  wash  in  the  Jordan  seven 
times.  His  servants  remonstrated  and  said,  "  My  father,  if 
the  prophet  had  bid  thee  do  some  great  thing,  wouldst  thou 
not  have  done  it  ?  How  much  rather  then,  when  he  saith  to 
thee,  Wash  and  be  clean."  Said  Simon  of  Samaria  to 
Peter  and  John,  (when  he  saw  that  men  received  the  Holy 
Ghost  by  the  laying  on  of  their  hands)  offering  them  money, 
"  Give  me  also  this  power,  that  on  whomsoever  I  lay  my 
hands,  he  may  receive  the  Holy  Ghost."  "  But  Peter  said 
unto  him,  Thy  money  perish  with  thee,  because  thou  hast 
thought  that  the  gift  of  God  may  be  purchased  wrth  money. 
Thou  hast  neither  part  nor  lot  in  this  matter  :  for  thy  heart 
is  not  right  in  the  sight  of  God.  Repent  therefore  of  this 
thy  wickedness  ;  and  pray  God,  if  perhaps  the  thought  of 
thine  heart  may  be  forgiven  thee.     For  I  perceive  that  thou 


32  SERMONS. 

art  in  the  gall  of  bitterness,  and  in  the  bond  of  iniquity." 
They  will  not  receive  it  because  it  is  a  gift !  !  ! 

8.  Because  some  men  try  to  heal  themselves,  or  apply  to 
other  men  to  do  it.  Hence  medicine  is  administered  to 
symptoms  and  effects  ;  miserable  palliatives  are  used,  and 
the  disease  rendered  more  incurable  by  being  rendered  more 
bearable  to  the  patient,  hence  lessening  his  disposition  to 
apply  to  the  Physician  of  Gilead  and  have  the  cause  of  all 
his  maladies  removed,  and  be  cured  in  God's  way. 

9.  Because  they  do  not  feel  like  it.  Lack  of  feeling  is  the 
worst  symptom  of  the  disease.  Then,  they  will  not  be 
healed  because  their  disease  has  assumed  its  most  dangerous 
and  fatal  form.  They  have  less  use  for  a  physician  when 
their  disease  is  worst.  Yea  more,  they  want  a  state  of  feel- 
ing which  a  cure  can  only  impart,  before  they  will  consent 
to  be  cured.  Even  more  than  this,  they  expect  God  to  con- 
vict them  more  deeply,  without  their  making  any  use  what- 
ever of  the  conviction  they  already  have — as  if  God  would 
give  great  grace,  when  they  obstinately  refuse  to  improve  the 
little  given.  It  is  an  effort  to  throw  the  responsibility  upon 
God.  They  will  die  with  a  disease  which  might  be  cured, 
because  they  do  not  feel  like  making  use  of  the  remedy  ; 
yet,  if  their  neighbor  were  to  die  of  the  fever  because  he  re- 
fused to  take  the  medicine  prescribed  from  the  simple  rea- 
son he  did  not  feel  like  it,  they  would  accuse  him  of  folly. 
You  never  will  feel  like  it. 

10.  Christians,  why  are  not  you  healed  ?  Sinner,  why  will 
ye  die  ?  Would  you  be  healed  ?  The  conditions  are  sim- 
ple. Repent  of  your  rejections  hitherto  of  the  Physician 
and  his  remedy,  of  your  acts  aggravating  the  malignancy  of 
the  disease,  and  receive  the  Physician  by  faith.  You  can- 
not heal  yourself — the  guilt  of  your  sin  is  infinite, — the  merit 
of  any  work  you  might  perform  can  be  but  finite ;  yet  you 
must  do  something,  and  what  you  must  do  must  give  you  the 


DISEASE   AND    PHYSICIAN.  33 

benefit  of  merits  which  are  infinite,  merits  equal  to  your  guilt ; 
and  yet  what  you  must  do,  must  imply  the  renunciation 
of  anything  you  can  do,  as  the  condition  of  availing  your 
self  of  the  merits  of  another.  Faith  is  the  only  thing  which 
will  meet  the  legal  conditions  involved.  It  is  the  act  of 
the  creature — he  does  something.  Yet  what  he  does  im- 
plies the  renunciation  of  himself  and  every  thing  which  he 
can  do,  for  it  is  faith  in  Christ,  faith  in  another.  And  it  is 
faith  called  into  action  by  feelings  excited  in  him  by  what 
Christ  did  for  him — faith  working  by  love.  You  must  have 
faith  in  the  physician  and  the  remedy.  The  faith  must 
amount  to  an  entire  dependence  on  the  physician,  and  an 
entire  renunciation  of  all  other  remedies.  This  remedy  or 
death  is  the  condition  of  your  soul. 

The  point  of  faith  into  which  a  common  belief  and  assent 
to  the  principles  and  provisions  of  Christianity  rises  to  the 
dignity  of  a  saving  trust — at  which  point  only  faith  is  availa- 
ble for  salvation — may  be  illustrated  :  A  man  is  hanging  by 
his  hand,  holding  to  a  feeble  vine  on  the  side  of  a  smooth 
perpendicular  wall  of  a  gigantic  precipice,  whose  summit 
and  boundaries  are  almost  out  of  sight.  Beneath  him  is  a 
chasm,  vast,  deep,  dark,  and  wide.  Pale  with  terror,  there 
he  hangs  with  no  crevice  in  which  to  place  his  foot,  swinging 
by  his  hand  to  a  single,  dry,  withered  vine  growing  out  of  a 
small  fracture  high  above  his  head.  He  looks  to  the  right 
and  left,  he  sees  nothing  but  a  ledgeless  cliff  widening  into 
tangled  brushwood  at  its  far  extremes.  He  looks  down  with 
a  sickening  and  reeling  brain  into  the  black  rugged  chasm 
over  whose  jaws  he  is  swinging  in  horror.  He  looks  above, 
and  an  unscalable  precipice  of  rocks,  in  whose  lightning- 
splintered  crags  are  the  eyries  of  the  thunder,  towers  hundreds 
of  feet  above  and  forms  the  frowning  crest  of  some  mountain 
spur.  There  he  swings,  ever  and  anon  a  fibre  of  the  creaking 
vine  snaps,  and  cold  chills  course  through  his  every  vein. 
2* 


34  SERMONS. 

He  feels  he  cannot  save  himself.  He  looks  around  him 
and  below  him  for  help,  but  there  is  none.  He  looks 
above  and  behold  a  light  glittering  and  spangling  down  the 
rocks,  and  a  strong  angel  shaving  the  dizzy  cliff  with  broad 
wings  of  flashing  alabaster,  and  resting  in  a  perfect  balance, 
every  dazzling  plume  quivering  in  the  subtle  air,  just  beyond 
his  reach  over  his  head.  "  Save  me,"  cries  the  affrighted 
man.  "  Do  you  believe  I  am  able  to  do  it  ?  "  replies  the 
angel.  The  man  sees  in  a  glance  the  strong  wing  and  mighty 
arm,  and  answers,  "  I  do."  "  Do  you  believe  I  am  willing 
to  do  it  ?  "  says  the  angel.  The  man  gazes  at  the  benignant 
and  loving  face,  and  joins  it  to  the  fact  of  the  angel's  coming, 
and  answers,  "  I  believe  that  thou  art  willing  to  do  it." 
"  Then,"  says  the  angel,  "  Let  go."  If  the  man  believes  in 
the  ability  and  willingness  of  the  angel  to  save  him  he  will 
"  let  go  "  and  depend  upon  the  angel  to  catch  him  at  the 
end  of  his  own  dependence,  and  in  the  act  of  his  perfect 
faith. 

The  Physician  of  Gilead  with  his  healing  balm  has  come. 
He  enters  the  door.  His  weary  feet  fall  noiselessly  along 
the  aisle.  He  steps  gently,  yet  firmly  into  the  chancel.  He 
turns  about  and  faces  you — Behold  him  !  The  dew  of  Her- 
mon  is  upon  his  locks,  the  dust  of  the  highway  clings  to  his 
garments  ;  his  sandals  are  worn — he  has  travelled  a  long 
way.  He  once  was  a  king,  with  a  crown,  throne,  and  king- 
dom. His  crown  excelled  the  value  of  gold,  and  the  beauty 
of  diamonds  ;  His  throne  was  imperishable  in  strength,  and 
unequalled  in  splendor  ;  His  kingdom  was  supreme,  abso- 
lute, universal.  Yet  for  our  sakes  he  left  all  and  came  to  the 
earth  ;  and  passing  by  the  way  of  Gethsemane,  Calvary,  and 
Joseph's  grave,  has  come  here  to-night.  In  his  hand  he 
holds  the  remedy  which  cost  him  his  life,  and  is  ready  now 
to  heal  you.  Again,  I  say,  Behold  him  !  His  face  is  all  be- 
nignity and   love  ;  His  wounds  are  bleeding  afresh  ;  tears  of 


DISEASE  AND   PHYSICIAN.  35 

entreaty  gush  from  his  eyes,  and  trickling  down  his  face  fall 
upon  the  floor.  Strange  the  Physician  should  have  to  en- 
treat   the    patient    to    be  cured,  yet    it  is  so — he  bids  you 

COME. 

Arise,  young  lady,  arise,  young  man,  arise,  sinner  gray  with 
years  and  gray  in  sin,  and  come  and  kneel  at  his  feet,  or 
turning,  his  departing  footsteps  sound  your  funeral  knell  upon 
the  steps  of  the  church,  and  he  will  leave  forever.  He  has 
not  long  to  wait.  The  remedial  dispensation,  is  rapidly 
sweeping  to  a  close,  and  your  probation  hangs  on  a  thread. 
It  may  end  in  an  hour — a  moment.  The  harvest  will  soon 
be  past,  the  summer  ended,  and  you  are  not  saved.  But 
now  you  may  be — for  still  he  waits.  As  his  ambassador  he 
tells  me  to  announce  it — still  he  waits.  Will  you  reject 
him  ?  Your  best  friend,  your  only  Savior,  will  you  ?  He 
turns — and  O,  how  sorrowful  !  He  steps  into  the  aisle 
again,  and  walks  slowly,  reluctantly,  wearily,  sadly,  away — 
bearing  his  remedy  with  him.  He  has  made  this  long  jour- 
ney for  nothing.  You  have  wilfully  rejected  him — rejected 
as  a  matter  of  choice.  He  is  near  the  door — some  of  you 
there  fall  across  his  way,  and  pray  him  to  stop — You  will 
not — then  he  is  gone,  gone  !     O  come  back  !     Come  back  ! 


SERMON  IV.— A  Fragment. 


THE    OCEAN    OF   TIME. 

THERE  is  that  home — but  here  is  this  world.     Between 
this  world  and  that  Heaven-Home  is  the  Ocean  of 
time. 

The  world  side  of  this  ocean  is  disfigured  by  a  thousand 
volcanoes  of  human  corruption  in  constant  outburst,  playing 
into  the  sickly  air  a«mid  mountains  of  pitchy  smoke,  streams 
of  lavic  fire,  hurtling  rock,  and  howling  scoriae,  which  falling 
to  the  earth  red-hot  and  wide  wasting,  every  landscape  is 
scarred,  blackened,  and  blasted,  with  but  here  and  there  an 
intervening  knoll  or  glen  to  tell  the  story  of  earth's  primeval 
beauty.  Scattered  over  this  world's  superficial  crust  propped 
out  of  a  subterranean  seething  fire  by  columns  of  metamor- 
phic  rock  too  feeble  for  their  burden,  are  the  temples  of 
man's  ambition  and  man's  philosophy,  the  monuments  of 
human  pride,  the  pagodas  of  human  folly,  the  palaces  of 
human  iniquity,  and  the  cathedrals  of  man's  idolatry. 
Among  them  may  be  seen  a  unique  and  lonely  ruin,  gray 
and  old,  upon  whose  crumbling  sides  hoary  Chronos  has  left 
its  records,  and  every  succeeding  year  which  has  made  up 
man's  historic  ages  has  gnawed  its  name.  It  is  a  tower 
whose  mates  have  long  since  perished,  and  without  wall 
stands  solitary  and  melancholy  out  upon  the  thistly  and 
briery  fields  of  man's  lost  estate.  They  say,  that  in  the  night 
time,  ghosts  of  man's  primeval  joys  and  primeval  good,  in 
many  a  shadowy  and  changing  shape,  peep  around  the  cor- 


THE   OCEAN  OF  TIME.  37 

ners,  creep  through  the  crevices,  and  climb  and  flit  along  the 
walls  of  the  dismal  ruins,  whistling  to  the  pestilential  winds 
of  Heaven's  curse,  and  making  the  night  chilly  and  weird 
with  horror.  Upon  this  tower's  last  remaining  turret  still  re- 
mains the  footprint  of  the  last  guardian  angel  of  the  world's 
pristine  times,  where  standing,  he  wept  his  valedictory,  then 
sprung  up  to  God,  leaving  his  track  behind  him.  This  tower 
is  the  last  remaining  vestige  of  man's  Paradise — it  marks  the 
gate. 

Along  the  coasts  of  this  world's  side  of  the  ocean  of  time 
are  bold  and  bald  promontories  and  frowning  cliffs  of  jagged 
rocks,  against  which  the  ocean  waves  and  ocean  surges  have 
beaten  for  sixty  centuries — with  here  and  there  a  cove  or 
bay  forming  the  harbor  for  some  world-city,  where  many  a 
craft  of  curious  kind  finds  anchorage  and  moorings.  All 
along  these  shores  are  lifeboats  stranded  and  bottomless,  and 
ruined  hulls,  shivered  keels,  broken  masts  and  splintered 
spars — thrown  upon  the  beach,  drifted  in  coves,  wedged  in 
fissures  plowed  by  the  ceaseless  billows  and  running  currents 
in  the  solid  rock,  or  hung  pendulously  upon  half-submerged 
and  ragged  ledges,  and  creaking  mournfully  with  every  rising 
wave. 

This  is  the  World  side  of  the  ocean  of  time,  typing  man's 
fallen  state — and  beneath  it  is  a  burning  mine  consuming  its 
very  foundations,  and  by  and  by,  it,  and  all  the  works  of  man 
which  adorn  it,  and  all  that  refuse  to  leave  it,  and  who  link 
their  destiny  with  it,  and  regardless  of  the  future  make  it 
their  all  in  all,  shall  perish  in  fiery  ruins.  But  to  this  Ocean 
there  is  a  heaven  or  home  side — a  country  sublimely  beauti- 
ful and  imperishably  magnificent — a  country  whose  inhabi- 
tants never  die,  a  country  which  will  exist  forever,  a  country 
to  which  we  are  all  invited,  and  by  going  we  escape  the 
world's  ruin.  This  country  types  man's  heavenly  future 
state.     But  O,  there  is  an  intervening  Ocean,  and  that  ocean 


38  SERMONS. 

is  filled  with  many  a  dangerous  shoal,  and  many  a  perilous 
rock,  around  which  the  waves  hiss  and  roar  and  splash,  and 
many  a  bellowing  maelstrom  which  churns  its  briny  foam, 
and  flings  its  weeping  spray  high  in  the  air.  Also  the  bil- 
lowy main  is  covered  with  privateers  commissioned  by  per- 
dition's infernal  king  to  capture,  sink,  and  damage  all  vessels 
freighted  with  passengers  from  this  world  to  the  other  shore. 
In  better  words,  the  sea  is  covered  with  merciless  and  dia- 
bolical corsairs.  Add  to  this  a  sky  which  is  seldom  calm  but 
easily  and  often  convulsed  with  terrific  tempests,  in  which 
hellish  passions  and  demon  hates  burn  and  flash  with  awful 
roar,  disastrous  power  and  ruinous  effect,  and  make  it  the 
stormiest  and  most  dangerous  of  all  oceans,  and  a  striking 
type  of  human  life  and  time.  For  we  know  that  ten  thou- 
sand ships,  made  by  earth's  master-builders,  have  left  the 
ports  of  this  world  with  passengers  for  the  other  shore,  but 
there  is  no  news  that  they  ever  arrived  with  their  living 
freight  and  unloaded  on  the  farther  side.  No  ship  made  by 
human  hands  which  has  sailed  from  this  world  has  ever  re- 
turned. The  presumption  is  that  they  and  all  the  passengers 
aboard  went  down  to  the  bottom,  or  wrecked,  the  passengers 
perished,  and  the  fragments  only  of  their  timbers  floated  to 
this  side.  One  ship,  however,  which  sailed  from  this  world, 
whose  name  was  ';  Riches,"  has  been  heard  from  :  it  had 
landed  its  passengers  in  hell — "  the  rich  man  died,  and  was 
buried,  and  in  hell  he  lifted  up  his  ey^s,  being  in  torments." 
There  never  was  a  time  when  so  many  human  crafts  were 
upon  the  waters,  endeavoring  to  outride  storms,  steer  clear 
of  all  rocks,  and  at  last  cast  anchor  in  the  harbor  of  glory — 
but  founder  they  must,  founder  they  will ;  for  no  human 
skill,  no  human  arm  can  make  such  a  ship,  or  if  making  it, 
can  steer  it. 

Now  cast  your  e)res  athwart  the  ocean  on  the  world-side 
of  it — for  there  are  none  which  get  over  in  sight  of  the  othei 


THE   OCEAN   OF   TIME.  39 

haven — and  behold  their  multitudinous  crafts.  No  two  are 
alike.  Here  are  denominational  brigs  with  many  a  rotten 
plank  in  side  and  bottom,  with  familiar  names  floating  from 
their  mastheads,  each  one  claiming  to  be  "  the  brig" 
and  each  crammed  with  bigots  crying  in  wildest  frenzy 
"  Come  aboard  our  ship,  or  you  will  all  perish."  Next  we 
have  the  ponderous  and  unwieldly  ships  of  an  unimpeachable 
Orthodoxy,  already  water-logged  and  sinking,  with  the  dead 
fathers  for  helmsmen,  and  crowded  deck  and  cabin  with 
slumbering  drones,  wearing  chains  upon  hands  and  feet  and 
necks,  balls  of  iron,  wrought  in  the  theological  forges  of  holy 
councils  commissioned  in  the  beginning  of  the  centuries  to 
do  the  world's  thinking,  and  to  keep  the  world's  conscience, 
and  to  mark  out  with  ecclesiastical  fiat  the  boundaries  of  the 
world's  thought,  and  that  forever.  Next  we  have  the  vessels 
of  human  philosophy,  weighted  down  to  the  load  water  line 
with  philosophers  superficial,  philosophers  profound,  philoso- 
phers gay  and  philosophers  grave — any  one  of  whom  can  give 
you  a  chart  of  the  mighty  deep  and  map  heaven  to  your  eye 
if  you  desire  it,  and  also  can  in  one  moment  prove  that  the 
old  ship  of  Zion  is  a  leaky  craft,  badly  built,  badly  manned, 
and  altogether  unsafe  for  such  a  voyage.  Next  we  have 
men  of  war,  manned  with  Isms  and  Schisms,  with  heavy 
guns,  intending  to  fight  their  way  across  life's  roaring  sea,  and 
take  heaven  by  storm — if  indeed  they  can  agree  and  will  not 
fight  each  other,  till  their  voyage  is  over.  Besides  these  we 
have  schooners  and  sloops  and  yachts  and  barges ; — or,  if 
you  please,  creeds  and  theories,  dogmatas  and  systems — all 
claiming  to  be  right,  and  perilling  all  upon  their  crafts,  and 
all  putting  to  sea  and  all  going  down  to  the  bottom. 
Mighty  heaven  !  this  is  no  figure  ;  men  have  embarked  their 
souls  upon  denominational  brigs  and  ships  of  orthodoxy,  ships 
of  philosophy,  ships  of  learning,  ships  of  reason,  and  ships  of 
creeds,  depending  upon  everything  else  but  Jesus  to  save  them. 


40  SERMONS. 

But  there  is  one  Ship,  and  only  one,  which  can  carry  us 
over  the  stormy  and  dangerous  main ;  that  is  the  Gospel 
Ship,  "the  Old  Ship  of  Zion" — and  her  gangboard  is  faith 
in  Jesus.  Orthodox  or  not  orthodox — believe  in  Jesus  and 
come  on  board.  She  is  now  in  the  harbor — we  are  aboard. 
Examine  her :  her  keel,  her  spars,  her  decks,  her  journal 
She  ships  her  anchor — love  drives.  Look  up !  Angels 
hover  on  her  masts.  The  ocean  may  be  replete  with  shoals 
and  rocks  and  maelstroms,  but  she  is  a  staunch  old  vessel, 
and  Jesus  is  her  captain,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  is  her  helms- 
man. Hell's  rovers  may  attack  her,  but  the  angels  of  heaven 
are  charged  with  her  keeping,  and  the  power  of  God  is  her 
defense.  Clouds  may  gather  black  and  ominous,  and  red- 
shafted  lightnings  may  pierce  the  wave,  and  echoless  and  de- 
tonating thunders  may  shake  the  world,  and  dreadful  hurri- 
canes may  rage  and  roar  through  the  waters,  and  stir  them 
into  awful  ebullition,  sea  surges  crested  with  foam  bounding 
into  the  very  chariot  of  the  storm  king,  and  mountain  billows 
scaling  heaven,  and  shrieking  Tritons  tearing  through  the 
folded  sails,  and  sea  dragons  lashing  the  quivering  keel — ■ 
but  our  Captain  is  on  the  deck,  and  our  helmsman  is  at  the 
wheel.  Presently  the  good  land  is  in  sight — then  the  ha;  bor 
— the  landing — the  greeting — shouts,  and  then  songs. 


SERMON   V. 

THE     MUTABILITY    AND     PERISHABLENESS     OF     ALL     EARTHLY 
THINGS,  AND    THE    IMMUTABILITY   AND    ETERNITY    OF    GOD. 

"  Of  old  hast  thou  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth  :  and  the  heavens  are 
the  work  of  thy  hands. 

"  They  shall  perish,  but  thou  shalt  endure  :  yea,  all  of  them  shall  wax 
old  like  a  garment ;  as  a  vesture  shalt  thou  change  them,  and  they  shall 
be  changed : 

"  But  thou  art  the  same,  and  thy  years  shall  have  no  end. 

"  The  children  of  thy  servants  shall  continue,  and  their  seed  shall  be  es- 
tablished before  thee." — Psalm  cii.  25-28. 

WHATEVER  exists,  exists  necessarily  one  of  two 
ways  :  either  from  the  innate  and  constitutionally 
inherent  principles  of  its  own  nature,  or  is  supported  in 
being  by  power  independent  of  itself.  This  is  an  axiom. 
Whatever  exists  from  the  innate  and  constitutionally  inher- 
ent principles  of  its  own  nature,  is  self-existent.  Whatever 
is  self-existent  exists  necessarily  and  eternally,  hence,  has 
always  been  and  always  will  be  unchangeably  the  same.  To 
assume  this  position  with  reference  to  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  contradicts  Revelation,  our  experience,  and  many  of 
the  known  laws  of  nature.  The  evidences  of  a  dependent 
existence  which  they  exhibit  in  the  mutations  to  which  they 
are  subject,  make  such  a  position  untenable  and  prepos- 
terous. 

In  fact,  everything  throughout  the  immensity  of  being, 
possessing  life  or  destitute  of  it,  depends  for  its  existence 
upon  the  constant  application  of  the  conserving  power  of 
some  cause  whose  existence  is  independent  of  itself.     If  the 


42  SERMONS. 

existence  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth  is  a  dependent  exist- 
ence, it  follows  they  are  not  eternal ;  if  not  eternal,  there 
was  a  period  when  they  were  not ;  if  there  was  a  period  when 
they  were  not,  they  had  a  beginning  ;  if  they  had  a  beginning, 
they  were  created,  hence  the  text :  "Of  old  hast  thou  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  earth  :  and  the  heavens  are  the  work 
of  thy  hands." 

I.  "  O/d"  in  the  text  is  a  relative  term.  Every  historic 
age  has  its  "good  old  times."  David,  twenty-eight  centuries 
ago,  wrote  of  old  times.  Homer,  before  the  first  Olym- 
piad, which  was  seven  hundred  and  seventy-six  years  before 
Christ,  wrote  of  ancient  days.  "  Of  old  "  has  reference  to 
the  time  of  creation.  When  all  things  were  created,  how- 
ever, the  Scriptures  do  not  inform  us.  The  account  given 
by  Moses,  the  most  authentic  as  well  as  the  most  ancient, 
says  nothing  about  the  date. 

There  is  no  difficulty  apparent  or  real  between  Geology 
and  the  Bible,  with  reference  to  the  time  all  things  were 
created ;  and  such  a  thing  would  never  have  been  thought 
of  had  it  not  been  for  the  dogmatical  and  unwarrantable  pos- 
tulations  superinduced  upon  Revelation  by  incompetent  ex- 
pounders of  it — mankind  going  upon  the  reasonable  assump- 
tion that  the  professed  teachers  of  Scripture  ought  certainly 
to  understand  what  they  profess  to  teach,  therefore  accept- 
ing without  personal  investigation  their  postulations  as  em- 
bodying the  true  sense  of  Scripture.  Mankind  so  identified 
these  postulations  with  the  teachings  of  the  Bible,  that  in 
their  minds  they  constituted  a  part  and  parcel  of  their  ideas 
of  Bible  doctrine ;  and  when  they  discovered  these  postula- 
tions were  false,  they  confidently  believed  that  the  Bible 
must  be  false  too.  If  there  is  a  difficulty  in  the  matter,  that 
difficulty  is  not  between  Geology  and  the  Bible,  but  between 
Geology  and  some  clerical  assumptions  having  their  origin 
in  ignorance  of  science    and  sacred  philology,  and  in  an 


ETERNITY   OF   GOD.  43 

effort  to  accommodate  Revelation  by  convenient  interpreta- 
tions to  adventitious  circumstances. 

The  statement  of  the  creation  of  all  things  by  God  was  a 
necessity  in    Revelation.       Without   such   a  statement  the 
Bible  would  not  have  been  complete,  and  it  would  not  havo 
met  all  the  requirements  and  necessities  of  man's   nature. 
Yet  the  statement  when  all  things  were  created,  though  not 
inconsistent  with  its  character  as  a  revelation,  was  a  super- 
fluity, and  was  by  no  means  necessary  to  accomplish  thai- 
which  it  was  intended  to  effectuate — the  salvation  of  man 
kind.     Therefore  it  revealed  the  fact,  and   not    the    date 
The  fact   is   a  Bible  truth,  the  date  a  matter  of  scientific 
inquiry.     The  Bible  was  not  given   to  teach  men  science. 
It  does  not  therefore  anticipate  the  advancement  of  mind  in 
science  by  revelations  of  such   scientific  accurateness  and 
completeness  as  to  preclude  its  acceptance  as  a  revelation  by 
all  generations  of  mankind. 

Suppose  it  had  revealed  a  stationary  sun  and  a  revolving 
world,  or  that  the  sun  was  the  centre  of  the  solar  system  and 
not  the  world,  the  early  families  would  not  have  received  it 
as  a  revelation  from  God.  It  would  have  contradicted  the 
appearance  of  tkings,  and  men  from  the  very  necessity  of 
their  nature  accept  the  appearance  of  things  as  true,  unless 
a  well  accredited  and  thoroughly  understood  science  cor- 
rects them.  A  scientific  revelation  in  advance  of  the  intel- 
ligent appreciation  of  mind  in  the  scale  of  ascension  and 
progression,  will  necessarily  be  pronounced  chimerical  and 
fabulous.  Galileo,  the  inventor  of  the  telescope,  believed 
and  taught  the  astronomical  dogma  in  question,  and  though 
now  it  is  well  established  and  a  fundamental  principle  in 
Astronomy,  yet,  then,  he  was  arraigned,  tried,  condemned, 
and  punished  as  a  heretic.  It  ought  not  to  be  otherwise  : 
for  if  the  mind  discredits  the  appearances  of  things  and  re- 
nounces them  as  false  before  it  is  able  to  receive  a  correct 


44  SERMONS. 

philosophy,  it  would  be  like  a  ship  torn  away  from  its  moor- 
ings and  without  rudder  or  sail  to  be  drifted  upon  the  sea 
of  incertitude,  till  finally  it  is  grounded  in  the  quicksands 
of  speculation,  or  stranded  a  pitiless  wreck  upon  the  rock  of 
unreasonable  doubt.  The  mind  must  have  some  ultimate 
upon  which  to  repose,  and  better  a  doubtful  one  than  none 
at  all. 

The  Bible,  therefore,  did  not  contradict  the  popular  scien- 
tific ideas  of  the  ages  in  which  it  was  given.  And  though 
it  is  unambiguous  and  unequivocal  on  all  subjects  necessary 
to  be  known  to  accomplish  the  salvation  of  man  from  sin 
and  death,  yet  by  no  revelation  of  this  kind  did  it  preclude 
its  acceptance  by  the  advocates  of  any  scientific  hypothesis, 
however  monstrous  and  untrue  that  hypothesis  may  have 
been.  Indeed  were  the  Bible  otherwise  it  would  not  have 
been  adapted  as  a  revelation  to  all  people  in  their  various 
stages  of  knowledge,  graduating  from  the  shallow  ignorance 
of  antiquity  to  the  comparatively  profound  erudition  of  the 
present  day.  Indeed  it  would  not  be  adapted  to  all  men 
now,  and  probably  to  none  at  all.  A  Book  whose  teachings 
with  reference  to  God  and  salvation  are  so  clearly  inter- 
preted according  to  their  original  intent  in  every  age,  irre- 
spective of  the  mental  attainments  of  the  age,  must  be  of 
Divine  origin. 

One  thing  according  to  science  seems  certain  ;  and  the 
Bible  does  not  contradict  it,  but  properly  interpreted  seems 
to  corroborate  it  :  the  earth  existed  prior  to  the  creation  of 
man.  Thrown  rough-cast  from  the  hand  of  its  Creator,  crude 
and  rugged,  it  was  prepared  as  the  residence  of  the  present 
creation  by  numerous  agencies  working  under  the  author- 
ity of  God,  through  the  lapse  of  many — many  ages,  before 
God  made  mammals  and  made  man  king  of  the  class,  and 
crowned  him  the  masterpiece  of  His  visible  terraqueous 
workmanship.     That  the  earth  should  have  been  prepared 


ETERNITY   OF   GOD.  45 

as  the  probationary  home  of  the  human  race  by  a  process  so 
gradual,  and  in  relation  to  our  ideas  of  the  length  of  time  so 
slow,  fully  harmonizes  with  God's  present  administration  of 
things. 

Agencies,  electrical,  chemical,  mechanical,  caloric,  vol- 
canic, atmospheric,  and  aqueous,  are  still  at  work  upon  the 
physical  structure  of  the  earth,  and  according  to  our  ideas 
of  speed,  with  no  more  rapidity  than  formerly,  yet  gradually 
and  slowly  preparing  it  for  its  final  change  by  fire,  when  it 
shall  probably  emerge  into  the  perfect,  in  which  state  only 
can  the  will  of  God  with  reference  to  it  be  realized.  The 
leaven  of  Christianity  is  also  only  slowly  and  gradually  per- 
meating the  masses  of  human  society,  and  only  by  degrees 
elevating  it  from  the  depths  of  ignorance  and  depravity  to 
the  supernal  heights  of  intellectual  excellency  and  moral 
purity.  It  can  work  no  faster  when  the  object  of  its  restor- 
ative and  elevative  power  is  fallen  so  low,  and  as  a  moral 
agent  is  content  with  his  fall.  Both  systems  of  agencies, 
physical  and  moral,  were  formerly  more  violent  in  their  ac- 
tion. They  were  adapted  in  kind  and  force  to  the  more 
ponderous  labor  they  were  called  upon  to  perform,  in  the 
ruder  ages  of  the  earth,  and  the  ruder  stages  of  Society. 

This  mighty  globe  once  trembled  upon  its  axis  as  subter- 
ranean fires  ran  hissing  hot  through  its  bowels,  and  volcanic 
power  with  the  noise  of  bellowing  thunder  upheaved  its  con- 
tinents, ruptured  its  strata,  overturned  its  mountains,  filled 
up  its  gorges,  and  reduced  the  asperities  of  its  surface. 
Christianity  was  introduced,  authenticated,  and  carried  on 
of  old  by  miracles,  and  extraordinary  exhibitions  of  the 
Divine  presence  and  power,  not  necessary  now.  Rivers 
and  seas  were  parted,  storms  were  raised  or  allayed,  and 
even  the  dead  burst  their  cerements  and  came  forth  alive. 
This  was  necessary  then  to  break  down  the  defences  of 
superstition  and  darkness,  and  upon  the  strongholds  of  infr 


46  SERMONS. 

delity  rear  the  ramparts  of  revealed  religion.  Such  exhibi- 
tions of  power  in  nature  and  grace  are  not  necessary  now. 
As  earth  and  man  approximate  perfection  milder  agencies 
and  milder  actions  are  sufficient. 

But  to  return  more  directly  to  the  point  primarily  designed 
to  be  illustrated — the  earth  was  prepared  as  a  place  of  hu- 
man residence  by  a  progression  and  development  apparently 
slow.  I  have  already  shown  you  that  such  a  mode  of  proce- 
dure is  not  an  anomaly  in  the  Divine  administration.  It  may 
be  further  illustrated  by  a  single  reference  to  Providence  : 
Generations  are  frequently  born  and  buried  during  the  de- 
velopment, elimination,  and  establishment  of  one  principle 
of  Christian  civilization.  The  intelligence  of  this  audience 
will  receive  this  statement  as  truth  without  an  eduction  of 
confirmatory  instances  with  which  the  volume  of  the  past  is 
replete.  Indeed,  my  hearers,  everything  approaches  ma- 
turity by  consecutive  steps  every  one  of  which  requires  a 
cognizable  length  of  time.  First  the  helpless  babe,  the  plas- 
tic youth,  then  the  vigorous  man  ;  first  the  blade,  the  ear, 
then  full  corn  in  the  ear  ;  molecules  of  rock,  minims  of  water, 
and  particles  of  light,  chemically  combining,  form  first  the 
bud,  then  the  bloom,  then  the  fruit. 

God  could  have  created  things  otherwise  ;  but  in  the  exer- 
cise of  His  own  prerogative,  He  chose  simply  to  give  exist- 
ence in  a  moment,  and  to  lead  to  perfection  by  degrees.  To 
ask  why  God  chose  what  seems  to  us  so  slow  a  process  for 
Him  who  is  Omnipotent,  in  the  place  of  the  more  rapid  one, 
is  about  as  sensible  as  to  ask  why  God  did  not  make  the 
mountains  an  inch  higher,  or  upon  making  them  an  inch 
higher  why  He  did  not  make  them  an  inch  lower.  Any  man 
who  would  ask  such  a  question  would  not  be  satisfied  unless 
God  had  made  the  same  mountain  of  all  imaginable  heights 
ever  varying  with  his  capricious  spirit  of  senseless  inquiry. 
As  long  as  there  are  two  or  more  ways  of  doing  the  same 


ETERNITY   OF   GOD.  47 

thing,  and  doing  the  thing  implies  the  choice  of  one  of  the 
ways  necessarily  to  the  exclusion  of  all  the  others,  so  long 
such  a  spirit  would  always  find  objections,  and  render  him- 
self contemptible  in  the  eyes  of  universal  being.  Length 
and  shortness  of  time,  rapidity  and  slowness  of  motion,  are 
relative  terms ;  and  our  ideas  of  them  need  not  enter  into 
the  Divine  counsels. 

II.  But  there  was  a  period  when  there  was  nothing  but 
God.  There  was  something,  and  that  something  was  God, 
and  it  filled  all  space.  There  never  was  such  an  inconceiv- 
able unsubstantiality  as  Nothing.  Yet  there  was  a  time 
when  there  was  no  material  thing  as  such — when  all  space 
was  an  absolute  vacuum — when  with  reference  to  material 
existence  illimitable  space  was  an  illimitable  inanity,  an  in- 
appreciable nihilism,  when  not  a  breath  of  air  or  ripple  of 
ether  waved  its  subtile  banners,  and  not  a  particle  of  matter 
or  minim  of  water  floated  in  their  aerial  and  ethereal  seas — 
when  all  was  an  eternity  of  darkness,  boundless,  pathless, 
infinite,  and  unilluminated  by  a  solitary  star  and  unrelieved 
by  a  single  spark.  That  there  was  a  period  when  God  only 
existed  follows  from  His  eternity,  and  the  non-eternity  of  all 
created  things. 

If  it  is  a  reflection  upon  the  benevolence  of  God  that  He 
should  have  existed  in  the  absence  of  any  other  thing,  there 
was  a  time  then  when  God  was  not  benevolent ;  for  He  was 
compelled  to  have  existed  an  eternity  by  Himself  before  all 
other  existences  began  to  be,  unless  those  existences  are  co- 
eternal  with  Him.  If  all  other  existences  are  co-eternal 
with  Him,  then  they  were  not  created,  and  the  doctrine  of 
the  creation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth  by  God  as  taught 
in  the  text  is  false.  The  matter  is  not  mended  by  giving  to 
the  origin  of  these  things  an  incalculable  and  immemorial 
antiquity,  for  if  they  had  an  origin  at  all,  that  origin  cannot 
be  placed  so  far  back  in  the  past  as  possibly  to  shorten  the 


48  SERMONS. 

eternity  preceding  it,  and  during  which  God  was.  How- 
ever great  the  antiquity  given  'to  the  origin  of  any  thing  it 
cannot  render  the  eternity  before  it  any  shorter  than  to  bring 
down  the  date  to  yesterday  or  to-day.  Nothing  that  is  in- 
finite can  be  added  to  or  subtracted  from. 

Then  after  interminable  ages  had  passed  on,  countless  in 
their  eternal  flight,  God  willed  the  existence  of  material  things 
and  exerted  His  power  to  produce  them  ;  and  immediately 
the  throne  of  Night  rocked  upon  its  dingy  foundations,  and 
the  terrified  monarch  who  up  to  this  hour  had  swayed  a  uni- 
versal and  unchallenged  sceptre,  was  blinded  by  the  exces- 
sive glory  of  worlds,  suns  and  systems  flashing  into  being  be- 
low, above  and  around  him,  and  took  up  his  long  retreat 
probably  never  to  find  a  resting-place,  but  to  be  eternally 
chased  by  similar  creations,  aggressive,  magnificent,  and  ever 
multiplying.  Such  is  the  cosmogony  of  the  universe,  and 
the  text  is  the  official  record  :  "  Thou  hast  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  earth :  and  the  heavens  are  the  work  of  thy 
hands." 

God  surveyed  the  whole.  His  great  eye  shone  throughout 
the  immensity  of  being,  taking  within  its  Omniscient  sweep 
everything  He  had  made,  great  and  small,  animate  and  inani- 
mate, sentient  and  insentient,  as  they  commenced,  altogether 
to  the  music  of  their  attuned  relations,  their  grand  march 
along  the  circle  of  their  destiny  ascending  with  every  cir- 
cumvolution in  its  approximation  to  the  perfect — and  said, 
"It  is  good,  and  very  goody  Creation's  work  was  done. 
Its  things,  its  agencies,  its  laws,  its  forces,  its  powers,  were 
so  adjusted  to  each  other  that  the  whole  was  the  grandest  of 
unities,  the  unity  of  Deity  excepted,  the  mightiest  of  equili- 
briums, the  equilibrium  of  Deity's  powers  excepted. — In  fact, 
in  constitutional  Deity  creation  had  its  commanding  Arche- 
type. Creation's  work  was  done,  and  the  whole  hung  in 
propless  equiponderancy  in  space. 


ETERNITY   OF   GOD.  49 

Creation's  unity  is  complete,  its  balance  perfect.  Let  the 
Vater's  level  be  disturbed  by  evaporation,  and  immediately 
atmospheric  and  electric  currents  are  exerted  to  restore  the 
equilibrium,  and  rills  go  percolating  down  rocky  ravines, 
and  torrents  go  thundering  down  mountain  gorges,  and 
creeks  go  meandering  through  mossy  glades  and  flowery 
meadows,  their  every  little  eddy  spinning  coronals  of  foam 
around  the  willow  branches  which  bathe  in  their  laughing 
ripples,  and  rivers  go  rolling  through  plains  and  mountains, 
and  plunging  down  awful  cataracts,  to  seek  their  ocean 
balance.  Let  the  beams  of  a  tropical  sun  falling  upon 
leagues  of  blistering  sand  disturb  by  rarefication  the  atmos- 
pheric balance,  and  howling  simoons  and  whirling  hurricanes, 
whose  dusty  tails  darken  heaven,  rush  like  an  army  of  winged 
fiends  to  establish  the  equilibrium. 

But  disturb  the  electrical  equipoise,  and  clouds  instantly 
marshal  their  black  squadrons,  and  bifurcated  lightnings 
flash  and  gleam  and  their  fiery  edges  go  smiting  through  the 
condensing  vapor, — pluvial  floods  pouring  from  every  horrid 
gash,  and  deafening  thunders  hurtle  and  tear  through  the 
shivering  air, — every  mountain  peak  bellowing  in  echo,  and 
the  grand  old  woods  nodding  and  weeping,  and  swollen 
torrents  go  rushing,  leaping  and  screaming  down  rocky 
steeps,  and  ocean  maddened  with  fright  spouts  her  cataracts 
into  the  face  of  the  storm  and  flings  her  surges  mountain 
high,  continents  trembling — till  the  equilibrium  is  restored. 
Impede  or  increase  the  motion  of  a  solitary  sphere,  propor- 
tioned as  it  is  to  the  quantity  of  matter  it  contains,  its  dis- 
tance from  its  centre,  and  the  gravity  and  motion  of  uni- 
versal being,  and  the  equilibrium  of  the  universe  would  be 
destroyed  ;  and  suns  and  worlds  disorbed  and  confusedly 
dashing  and  colliding  with  confounded  uproar  would  beat 
each  other  to  fragments,  and  the  shores  of  oblivion's  dread 
sea  would  be  encumbered  with  the  chaotic  rubbish. 
3 


50  SERMONS. 

Let  the  fiery  comet,  as  it  blazes  along  the  circle  of  its 
mighty  ellipse,  its  degrees  of  velocity  ever  varying  in  the 
ratio  of  its  ever-changing  distance  from  the  sun,  but  untimely 
slack  its  speed  and  it  would  come  in  collision  with  other  orbs 
whose  tracks  it  crosses  and  decussates,  and  would  unbalance 
and  destroy  all  creation  ;  or  upon  reaching  its  aphelion  let  it 
refuse  to  repeat  its  circuit,  and  dash  madly  on,  and  the  final 
result  would  still  be  the  same  :  the  universe  would  lose  its 
equilibrium,  and  anarchy  overtaking  anarchy  would  strew 
the  fields  of  space  with  universal  ruin.  Creation's  unity  is 
complete,  and  its  balance  perfect,  and  its  calculated  motion 
shows  Geometry  to  be  the  first  of  studies,  and  God  the  first 
of  Geometers. 

The  earth  and  heavens  spoken  of  in  the  text  comprehend 
only  this  globe  and  the  circumambient  atmosphere,  but  not  the 
whole  universe.  Let  us,  therefore,  confine  ourselves  within 
their  limits.  Around  us  and  above  us  is  an  invisible  elastic 
fluid  surrounding  the  earth  to  a  height  variously  estimated 
from  forty  to  one  hundred  miles,  and  abounding  with  the 
most  wonderful  and  interesting  phenomena.  In  its  fields 
are  the  birth  chambers  of  the  tempest  and  the  caravansaries 
of  the  travelling  storm.  In  its  aerial  pavilions  is  the  home  of 
the  lightning,  the  chariots  of  the  hurricane,  the  steeds  of  the 
wind,  the  palace  of  Iris  and  the  pleasure-grounds  of  her  at- 
tendant nymphs. 

We  walk  upon  the  rough  surface  of  a  vast  globe  filled  with 
internal  fires,  and  whose  superficial  crust,  rugged  with  moun- 
tains, indented  with  valleys,  and  ornamented  with  cities,  foli- 
age and  flowers,  is  propped  upon  pillars  of  slate  and  founda- 
tions of  granite.  Threading  the  rocks  beneath  our  feet  are 
veins  of  gold  and  silver  beyond  the  miser's  reach.  Probably 
under  our  very  dwellings  are  vaulted  caverns  richer  in  gems 
than  cabalistic  story,  where  the  fabulous  gnome  reared  his 
tiny  temples  of  architectural  silver,  spangled  with  jewels  and 


ETERNITY   OF  GOD.  51 

fretted  with  gold.  The  earth  with  its  mountains,  rocks  and 
seas,  its  trees,  plants  and  flowers,  clothed  in  the  aerial 
drapery  of  its  spacious  atmosphere,  replete  with  imponder- 
able elements,  subtile  gases,  and  floating  vapors,  is  a  museum 
of  instructive  and  attractive  wonders. 

III.  But  the  text  says  that  the  earth  and  the  heavens 
"  shall  perish  " — "  yea,  all  of  them  shall  wax  old  like  a  gar- 
ment :  as  a  vesture  shalt  thou  change  them,  and  they  shall 
be  changed."  Here  we  have  the  relation  between  God  and 
material  things.  They  are  represented  as  a  garment  which 
God  wears,  and  which  is  liable  to  grow  old  and  be  changed. 
"  They  ....  shall  wax  old  like  a  garment :  as  a  vesture 
shalt  thou  change  them,  and  they  shall  be  changed."  We 
have  already  shown  you  that  the  earth  and  heavens  do  not 
exist  from  the  innate  and  constitutionally  inherent  principles 
of  their  own  nature,  and  that  therefore  they  are  supported  in 
their  being  by  another  power  whose  abstract  existence  is  so 
independent  of  their  own  that  were  they  not  it  would  be. 

Nature,  or  the  universe,  in  its  totality,  cannot  be  identified 
with  God — it  is  not  God  ;  yet,  He  is  the  Primeval  and  Sub- 
stratum essence  upon  which  the  existence  of  all  material 
things  rests.  So  essential  is  this  relation  God  sustains  to  all 
material  things  that  take  God  out  of  them,  and  they  cease 
at  once  to  be.  This,  and  not  any  exertion  of  Divine  power, 
is  all  that  is  necessary  to  affect  the  annihilation  of  the  mate- 
rial universe.  The  learned  world  has  been  exercised  for 
twenty-four  centuries  in  the  endeavor  to  discover  some  single 
constituent  substance,  some  primitive  element,  common  to. 
all  material  things,  and  out  of  which  the  material  universe 
was  originally  produced,  and  in  which  all  creation's  parts 
would  find  their  ultimate  analysis.  The  inquiry  was  first 
made  in  the  sixth  century  before  Christ.  It  was  the  prime 
and  controlling  question  with  the  philosophers  of  that  philo- 
sophic epoch.     Some  of  them  said  that  this  primordial  and 


52  SERMONS. 

fundamental  something  was  water  ;  others,  that  it  was  air  ; 
others,  that  it  was  an  abstraction  they  called  the  Indetermi- 
nate;  others,  abstract  Number ;  others,  Nous  or  mind. 
Xenophanes  said  that  this  primal  substance  was  an  immuta- 
ble, indivisible,  and  eternal  One,  which  he  identified  God — ■ 
here  was  the  beginning  of  Pantheism  ;  others  adopted  Xeno- 
phanes' theory,  but  denied  its  identity  with  God.  The  form 
of  the  inquiry  is  now  seen  in  the  efforts  of  modern  philoso- 
phers to  discover  the  monads,  the  ultimate  atoms  of  the  ma- 
terial universe  ;  and  the  recent  invention  of  an  improved 
microscope  has  awakened  expectations  in  that  direction. 

If  material  monads  are  ever  discovered,  it  will  establish 
presumptively  the  self-existence  and  eternity  of  matter,  and 
its  consequent  co-eternity  with  God — if  indeed  it  does  not 
end  in  the  coarse  materialism  of  Spinoza,  the  identification 
of  the  universe  with  God  involving  the  denial  of  God's  per- 
sonality : — or  worse,  that  the  mind  upon  the  discovery  of  such 
monads  will  fall  into  the  old  heathen  error,  and  persuade 
itself  that  it  has  found  a  sufficient  cause  for  all  cognizable 
existence,  and  having  necessarily  to  assume  the  eternity  of 
that  cause,  be  it  spirit  or  matter,  will  substitute  these  ulti- 
mate atoms  for  a  spiritual  First  Cause,  and  rest  itself  in 
Atheism.  In  fact,  the  inquiry  was  first  instituted  by  the 
Grecian  philosophers  to  explain  nature  upon  a  basis,  "  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  gods ; "  hence,  when  they  discovered 
what  they  thought  to  be  the  primitive  and  constituent  sub- 
stance of  all  material  things,  they  invested  that  substance 
with  an  inherent  generative  power  sufficient  to  produce  the 
existence  of  the  universe.  The  atomic  philosophy  of  the 
ancient  Epicureans  thought  that  atoms  possessed  gravity  and 
motion  per  se,  by  which  all  things  were  formed  without  God. 

The  mind  must  have  an  ultimate  upon  which  to  repose. 
It  sees  matter,  naturally  inert  matter,  in  motion.  It  inquires 
for  the  cause.     It  is  not  sufficient  to  tell  it  that  it  is  a  law  of 


ETERNITY   OF   GOD.  53 

nature.  This  it  regards  as  no  cause,  for  law  is  only  a  mode 
of  action,  and  is  therefore  of  itself  nothing.  It  sees  a  stone 
when  cast  up  naturally  fall  to  the  earth.  It  is  not  sufficient 
to  tell  it  that  it  is  the  attraction  of  gravitation.  This  may 
satisfy  a  school-boy  for  a  time,  but  a  philosophic  mind  very 
thoughtfully  regards  the  assignment  of  the  cause  as  but  a 
restatement  of  the  phenomena  in  question.  It  knows  that 
matter  of  itself  possesses  no  such  power.  It  sees  in  nature 
that  effect  follows  cause,  and  that  like  causes  produce  like 
effects  ;  and  it  knows  that  there  is  no  inherent  power  in  any 
physical  cause  to  produce  any  effect,  much  less  an  inherent 
power  to  produce  an  effect  like  itself.  It  cannot  regard  the 
mere  fact  as  the  end  of  all  philosophic  inquiry,  neither  can 
it  rest  in  an  eternal  succession  of  causes — it  demands  a 
First  Cause. 

It  sees  that  material  things  exist,  and  it  demands  their 
origin,  and  a  recognitory  basis  for  their  being.  It  is  not 
worth  while  for  clerical  dogmatists,  ecclesiastical  charlatans, 
enshrined  ignorance,  and  a  bigoted  sciolism  to  interpose, 
the  aspirations  of  mind  will  lead  mind  on,  and  mind  in  obey- 
ing them  will  but  obey  God,  and  it  will  trample  down  all  oppo- 
sition, storm  the  citadel,  and  discover  the  secret — it  will 
know  the  First  Cause.  And  furthermore,  it  knows  that 
something  cannot  be  built  upon  nothing,  and  that  if  matter 
does  not  exist  from  the  innate  and  constitutionally  inherent 
principles  of  its  own  nature  it  can  have  no  abstract  existence 
and  the  First  Cause  is  not  material.  Mechanical  skill  has 
never  reached  the  indivisible  monad,  hence  the  philosophical 
axiom  that  there  is  no  limit  to  the  divisibility  of  matter. 
Chemical  skill  has  reached  what  it  denominates  elements, 
because  they  appear  to  be  simple  and  uncompounded  and 
lie  at  the  end  of  its  analysis,  but  it  has  never  discovered  an 
elementary  principle  which  is  fundamental  to  the  existence 
of  all  things,  and  which  is  of  itself  mechanically  indivisible 


54  SERMONS. 

— in  other  words  it  has  never  discovered  those  elemental 
monads. 

The  question  "  What  is  substance  ?  " — if  the  answer  is 
expected  to  reveal  an  uncompounded,  indiscerptible,  and 
universal  something,  existing  in  all  material  things  as  the 
essence  of  their  existence  and  the  basis  of  their  tangibility 
and  form — will  never  be  answered  by  the  discovery  of  a 
material  element. 

The  Great  First  Cause  upon  whose  existence  the  mind 
can  repose  in  perfect  satisfaction  and  confidence  as  having 
found  an  ultimate,  must  be  a  self-existent  and  intelligent 
Spirituality.  The  text  presents  God  as  this  First  Cause.  If 
naturally  inert  matter  is  in  motion,  it  is  the  God  that  is  in  it. 
If  a  stone  when  thrown  up  falls  back  to  the  earth,  it  is  the 
God  that  is  in  nature  holding  all  of  its  parts  together,  and 
preventing  the  world  He  has  made  from  destruction  by  dis- 
integration. If  effect  uniformly  and  universally  follows 
cause,  if  effect  is  like  its  cause,  the  reason  is  that  God  is  in 
the  consecution,  and  is  the  vital  and  sustaining  and  executive 
Cause  which  interlocks  every  link  and  section  in  the  mighty 
chain.  If  material  things  exist,  the  text  presents  God  as 
their  origin,  as  the  simple,  primal  and  all-pervading  essence 
from  which  their  being,  including  their  multifarious  and  mul- 
tiform phenomena,  is  reared — and  that  while  God  is  not  the 
universe,  and  a  rock  is  not  a  part  of  God,  yet  He  is  in  them 
and  wears  them  as  a  "  garment." 

God  is  the  First  Cause,  absolutely  and  universally.  Trace 
back  science  and  we  arrive  at  God's  mind.  Trace  back 
moral  principles  and  we  arrive  at  God's  character.  Trace 
back  existence  and  we  arrive  at  God's  existence.  Such  is 
the  doctrine  of  the  text  with  reference  to  existence,  and  con- 
sequentially with  reference  to  every  other  thing  we  have 
enumerated.  Such  a  revelation  of  Deity  invests  Him  with 
commanding  and  infinite  grandeur.     In  place  of  atheistically 


ETERNITY   OF   GOD.  55 

putting  God  out  of  nature,  or  so  far  back  that  we  cannot 
see  Him,  the  text  brings  Him  right  into  our  houses,  and  fills 
immensity  with  Him,  and  writes  "  Dei  plena  sunt  omnia  " 
upon  every  wave,  and  wind,  and  cloud,  and  rock,  and  world, 
and  star,  and  sun  in  the  universe.  God  is  the  First  Cause 
of  all  beings,  and  His  glory  the  Final  Cause,  and  to  be  like 
Him  is  perfection  diademed.  God  is  first,  and  God  is  last, 
and  God  is  all  in  all,  and  blessed  for  evermore. 

"  They  shall  perish  ....  yea  all  of  them  shall  wax  old 
like  a  garment ;  as  a  vesture  thou  shalt  change  them  and 
they  shall  be  changed."  Another  and  a  prominent  truth 
enunciated  in  these  words  is  the  changeability  of  all  material 
things.  Mutation  is  characteristic  of  the  world.  Its  physi- 
cal structure  is  continually  changing.  Rocks  are  forming 
and  disintegrating  ;  escarpments  are  being  converted  into 
simple  declivities ;  valleys  are  widening  and  extending ; 
polyps  are  laying  the  foundations  of  continents,  to  be  elevated 
when  finished  by  volcanic,  power  ;  rivers  are  continually 
shifting  their  channels  ;  oceans  encroach  upon  one  land  and 
deposit  their  alluvium  upon  another.  Particles  and  masses 
are  coalescing  and  separating.  Simples  are  compounding, 
and  compounds  are  dissolving,  till  the  world  of  yesterday  is 
not  the  world  of  to-day.  Change  omnipotent  writes  its  name 
upon  every  rock  and  mountain  brow  of  this  vast  earth. 
Change  not  only  affects  the  earth,  but  it  shivers  through  all 
of  nature's  kingdoms  ;  rocks,  trees,  and  races  are  whirled 
like  lightning  through  the  winged  epochs,  and  even  govern- 
ments and  institutions  perish  under  its  tread.  Our  very 
hopes,  honors  and  home-altars  in  virtue  of  their  connection 
with  the  earth  have  the  contagion  and  fly  before  us  like 
phantoms.  How  often  we  can  truly  sing,  "  There  is  nothing 
true  but  heaven." 

Time,  time,  the  father  of  change,  high  and  lifted  up  upon 
his  rolling  throne,  with  glass  and  scythe  in  hand,  and  the  un- 


56  SERMONS. 

folded  scroll  of  human  deeds  streaming  like  a  pennon  from 
his  helmet's  crest,  outrides  the  tempest,  and  leaves  the  light- 
ning's flash  and  the  sunbeam's  flight  glimmering  far  in  his 
rear.  Whither  away,  fearful  spirit  ?  If  away  you  must,  why 
scatter  the  hoar  frost  upon  manhood's  locks  ?  Why  cut 
your  rude  and  ugly  channels  upon  our  cheeks  ?  Why  drink 
up  the  energies  of  life  and  stoop  age  with  infirmities  ?  Why 
dash  the  beauty  of  youth,  and  obliterate  the  tints  of  health  ? 
Why  empty  flagons  of  chilly  dew  upon  our  hopes,  affections 
and  remembrances  ?  Why  mar  our  monuments  and  statu- 
ary ?  Why  efface  our  family  records,  and  gnaw  with  your 
iron  tooth  the  epitaphs  from  our  tombstones  ?  Surely  the 
grave  ought  to  be  sacred  to  your  touch.  But  his  goal  is  the 
Judgment  throne,  away  he  hies  to  make  his  report  of  human 
errors,  and  exhibit  the  thousand  stabs,  each  tongued  and  cry- 
ing for  vengeance,  he  has  received  from  human  murderers. 
The  track  of  his  chariot  wheel  is  seen  in  the  cracked  walls 
and  mossy  turrets  of  castles  old,  with  the  aged  ivy  still  cling- 
ing in  its  death  with  withered  fibres  in  the  crevices.  It  is 
seen  in  the  dismembered  fragments  of  empires  and  kingdoms 
drifting  down  the  stream  of  human  history,  solemnly  sublime 
in  their  utter  desolation.  The  inexorable  rims  of  its  wheels 
plow  the  earth,  rip  up  its  bowels  of  aggregated  rock,  grind 
the  mountains  to  dust,  and  roll  in  awful  grandeur  above  the 
stars.  Flashing  with  every  revolution  from  straik  and  axle 
is  the  talismanic  word  mutation,  whose  fiery  blaze  burns  and 
blasts  the  world.  The  next  sweep  may  roll  us  into  the 
Judgment — are  you  ready! 

But  these  changes  will  culminate  in  one  fiery  epoch  which 
will  involve  the  total  destruction  ot  the  present  constitution 
of  the  earth,  the  surrounding  heavens,  and  all  things  related 
to  them,  expressed  in  the  text  by  the  word  "  perish  " — "  They 
shall  perish."  The  instrument  which  will  effect  this  change 
is  revealed  in   the  Bible  to  be  fire.     This  element  is  latent 


ETERNITY   OF   GOD.  57 

in  all  nature,  or  it  is  a  result  of  friction  consequent  upon 
motion.  Furthermore  it  is  scientifically  demonstrated  that 
the -earth  is  but  a  globe  of  melted  matter,  enclosed  in  a  crust 
or  cyst,  at  most  but  sixty  miles  thick.  Let  God  but  speak, 
and  let  His  awful  breath  but  blow,  and  every  rose,  and  wind 
and  wave  will  kindle  into  a  blaze,  and  earth's  primordial  fires, 
raging  and  agitated,  will  rend  the  feeble  crust,  rivers  and 
oceans  will  fly  away,  mountain-ranges  and  continents,  grand 
with  art,  will  fall  in  with  a  crashing  noise  and  dissolve  into 
one  fused  mass ;  and  the  old  earth,  not  annihilated,  but  its 
constitution  changing,  will  roll  away  red  and  fervid  from  the 
Judgment  seat — probably  afterwards  when  cooled  and  puri- 
fied to  be  the  basis  for  the  uprearing  of  a  more  splendid 
creation. 

IV.  Amid  this  scene  of  material  mutability  and  destruc- 
tion, God's  eternity  and  immutability  remain,  i.  His  eter- 
nity :  "They  shall  perish,  but  thou  shalt  endure.  .  .  .  and 
thy  years  shall  have  no  end."  God  is  eternal  in  the  ab- 
solute sense  of  the  term,  and  to  the  widest  compass  and 
the  utmost  boundaries  of  its  application.  He  is  eternal  with 
reference  to  His  existence.  This  includes  two  ideas,  that 
He  is  without  beginning  and  without  end.  He  is  without 
beginning.  He  existed  before  all  things ;  therefore,  there 
was  no  existence  prior  to  Him  to  make  Him.  And  He  could 
not  make  Himself;  for  this  would  imply  that  He  existed  be- 
fore He  existed,  in  order  to  originate  His  existence.  And 
being  cannot  originate  without  a  cause  ;  therefore,  if  God 
is  not  eternal  there  is  no  God.  He  is  without  beginning 
from  necessity.  He  is  without  end.  He  exists  from  the 
innate  and  constitutionally  inherent  principles  of  His  own 
nature — this  is  self-existence.  If  He  is  self-existent,  it  could 
not  be  otherwise  than  that  He  should  exist — this  is  neces- 
sary existence.  If  His  existence  is  necessary  it  follows  that 
it  could  not  cease  to  be  ;  hence  God  is  without  end.  The 
3* 


58  SERMONS. 

several  predicates  affirmed  of  God  the  subject — self-exist- 
ence, necessary  existence,  and  eternal  existence, — form  a 
logica1  chain  of  three  inseverable  links,  any  one  of  which  im- 
plies both  the  others.  The  Psalmist  expresses  the  whole 
idea  in  the  words  :  "  From  everlasting  to  everlasting  thou 
art  God."  Let  the  mind  travel  back  beyond  the  flood,  be- 
yond the  tombs  of  multitudinous  ages,  and  still  beyond — and 
He  is  God  "  From  everlasting."  Then  let  it  turn  its  flight  and 
rush  at  once  beyond  the  Judgment,  and  on  over  the  wreck 
of  future  creative  fabric,  and  still  on — and  He  is  God  "To 
everlasting." 

He  is  eternal  with  reference  to  space.  In  every  point, 
however  infinitesimal  in  the  limitless  and  trackless  regions  of 
immensity,  He  is  present  in  all  the  perfections  of  His  being. 
Not  in  a  state  of  division  or  diffusion,  but  in  the  aggregated 
capabilities  and  powers  of  His  indiscerptible  essence  and 
nature.  If  a  circle  is  infinite,  it  is  easily  perceived  that  its 
centre  is  anywhere  and  everywhere  within  the  circle,  and  we 
have  a  ubiquitous  centre.  Likewise,  within  the  infinitude 
of  the  Divine  existence  a  ubiquitous  central  and  centralized 
mind,  a  God  everywhere,  yet  all  of  Him  at  any  one  given  point 
in  space.  Every  intelligent  creature,  whether  he  inhabits 
hell  or  heaven,  the  misty  orbs  of  the  nebulae,  or  this  material 
globe,  may  truthfully  say  every  moment,  "  Thou  God, 
seest  me."  Every  thrill  of  their  thoughts,  every  volition  of 
their  wills,  trembles  with  awful  distinctness  in  the  light  of 
His  presence. 

His  eye  kindled  to  a  blaze  reveals  the  erratic  track  of 
every  wandering  atom,  and  the  trodden  pathway  of  every 
roiling  sphere.  Universal  space  is  filled  with  the  universal 
glories  of  His  ubiquitous  presence.  My  hearers,  God  is 
here  !  He  is  here  in  the  full  measure  of  all  that  constitutes 
Him.  He  is  here  in  as  absolute  a  sense  as  if  He  was  no- 
where else.     All  His  power,  all  His  knowledge,  all  His  wis 


ETERNITY   OF   GOD.  59 

dom,  all  His  holiness,  all  His  justice,  all  His  mercy,  and  all 
His  goodness  are  in  this  room — totalized  and  unified—  till 
every  inch  of  air  from  floor  to  roof  is  instinct  with  God.  He 
is  beneath  our  feet,  above  our  heads,  behind  us,  beside  us, 
and  before  us,  within  us  and  without ;  He  is  in  the  aisles, 
He  is  in  the  chancel,  He  is  in  the  pulpit,  He  is  in  the  galleries 
— God  fills  the  church  !  And  His  great  eye  is  flashing  right 
in  our  faces,  and  shining  along  every  fibre  and  vein,  and 
kindling  in  the  brain — our  souls  are  naked  to  His  gaze. 
Hush  !  O,  hush  every  thought  !  the  Awful  God  is  in  His 
Sanctuary — we  feel  His  presence — God  is  here  I 

He  is  eternal  with  reference  to  duration.  He  is  abso- 
lutely present  in  all  the  potency  and  force  of  His  nature  and 
attributes,  at  every  cycle,  period,  or  point,  whether  present, 
past,  or  future,  at  one  and  the  same  time.  Therefore,  every 
event,  however  remote  in  the  future,  is  present  to  Him. 

2.  His  Immutability :  "  They  shall  perish,  yea,  all  of 
them  shall  wax  old  like  a  garment ;  and  as  a  vesture  shalt 
thou  change  them,  and  they  shall  be  changed  :  but  thou  art 
the  same."  God's  existence  is  uncaused  and  independent 
of  everything,  because  it  was  prior  to  everything — or,  there 
is  no  God.  He,  therefore,  has  all  the  elements  of  existence 
within  and  of  Himself.  If  so,  His  existence  is  a  perfect  ex- 
istence. If  His  existence  is  a  perfect  existence  nothing  can 
be  added  to  it  or  taken  from  it,  and  in  the  absence  of  one 
or  the  other  of  these  processes  there  can  be  no  change  af- 
fected in  any  nature.  God  is  therefore  essentially  immuta- 
ble. His  essence,  His  laws,  His  government,  and  Christianity 
assert  so  much.  If  God  is  immutable,  why  is  He  represented 
in  the  Bible  as  changing  His  purpose,  as  in  the  case  of  Nin- 
eveh for  instance  ?  The  change  is  not  in  God,  but  in  man. 
It  is  not  the  sun  standing  still  over  Gibeon,  but  the  earth 
ceasing  to  revolve  upon  its  axis.  The  creature  has  simply 
changed  his  aspect  to  God's  government,  and  become  a  sub- 


60  SERMONS. 

ject  of  a  different  administration  of  it.  God  has  not  changed 
—  He  is  unchangeable. 

V.  Upon  the  immutability  and  eternity  of  God  the  Psalmist 
in  the  text  relies  for  the  immutability  and  perpetuity  of  the 
church  :  "  Thou  art  the  same,  and  thy  years  shall  have 
no  end,"  this  is  his  premise,  now  hear  the  conclusion  :  "The 
children  of  thy  servants  shall  continue,  and  their  seed  shall 
be  established  before  thee."  The  doctrine  of  the  Psalmist 
is,  that  an  immutable  and  eternal  God  having  established  a 
church,  that  church  will  descend  constitutionally  the  same 
from  His  servants  to  their  children,  and  to  their  children's 
seed,  while  time  endures  with  man.  The  great  reason  of  the 
church's  institution  was  the  salvation  of  man.  And  God's 
wisdom,  holiness,  and  goodness  ;  His  knowledge  of  Himself, 
His  system,  His  law,  His  government,  and  the  entire  future  ; 
His  perfect  acquaintance  with  man,  man's  fall,  man's  con- 
dition ;  all  forbid  that  He  should  institute  a  church  whose 
constitutional  principles  and  provisions  did  not  involve  all 
the  facts  and  exigencies  of  the  case,  therefore  not  adapted 
to  the  purpose  of  its  original  institution  to  the  end  of  time. 
From  the  institution  of  the  church  to  the  Judgment  there 
could  arise  no  possible  reason  for  changing  its  constitution, 
and  winding  up  its  gracious  dispensation,  which  God  did  not 
know  from  all  eternity,  and  which  would  not  have  been  true 
during  the  entire  history  of  man  as  a  fallen  being.  The 
church,  therefore  came  from  the  hands  of  God  at  first  as  it 
will  remain  while  time  lasts  ;  and  God's  love  for  man  having 
undergone  no  diminution,  and  the  necessities  of  man  con- 
tinuing the  same,  the  church  will  live  till  human  probation 
expires. 

God's  immutability  and  eternity  stand  pledged  for  the  im-. 
mutability  and  perpetuity  of  the  church.  Originally  built 
upon  Christ  it  has  never  shifted  from  its  foundation,  and 
never  can,  or  will.     From  the  deepest  and  wisest  reasons  it 


ETERNITY   OF  GOD.  6l 

has  been  characterized  by  different  dispensations,  yet  the 
same  Saviour  and  hope  of  personal  salvation  which  were 
presented  to  Adam  were  presented  to  the  Patriarchs,  to  the 
Jews,  to  the  Gentiles,  to  us,  and  will  be  presented  to  our 
children.  With  the  immutability  and  eternity  of  God 
pledged  for  its  immutability  and  perpetuity,  the  church  is 
more  durable  than  the  solid  granite.  See  that  huge  granitic 
boulder  heaved  by  volcanic  power  from  some  mountain's 
side,  lying  upon  the  ocean  shore  amid  the  accumulated  de- 
bris of  centuries,  exhibiting  the  abrasions  of  tides  and  drifts, 
worn  by  winds  and  driving  rains,  and  scarred  and  cracked  by 
the  heavy  tramp  of  ages  ;  even  its  indurated  structure  has 
not  been  able  to  resist  the  power  of  change.  But  the  church, 
uncorroded  by  the  teeth  of  flying  years,  unmarked  by  the 
fragments  of  thrones  and  republics  continually  drifting  by  on 
the  roaring  current  of  time,  and  unbattered  by  the  infringe- 
ment and  concussion  of  hell's  infernal  thunderbolts  ;  lifts  its 
walls  and  turrets  in  unscathed  and  imperishable  strength  to 
heaven,  as  unchangeable  and  impregnable  as  the  throne  of 
God. 

The  same  banner  of  lily-white  decussated  by  its  red  cross, 
which  waved  over  Adam's  family  altar,  and  under  which 
Abel  enlisted,  fought,  and  fell ;  and  flaunted  in  sight  of  the 
tree  of  life  and  its  guardian  sword  of  ever-turning  and  ever- 
circling  flame,  and  which  in  the  light  of  God's  favor  break- 
ing through  the  darkness  of  man's  dispelling  night  flashed  de- 
fiance into  the  very  teeth  of  the  serpent,  and  was  the  sym- 
bol of  an  inaugurated,  organized  opposition  to  hell,  which 
would  result  in  hell's  defeat,  and  the  everlasting  consignment 
of  its  legions  to  Erebus,  still  floats  at  the  head  of  the  church's 
columns.  It  is  a  banner  which  never  has  been  lowered — 
but  high  and  lifted  up,  unfolded  upon  the  air  above  every 
embattled  field  and  scene  of  contest  which  has  marked  the 
progress  of  the  church,  in  sunshine  and  in  darkness  it  has 


62  SERMONS. 

ever  streamed  in  triumph,  while  the  ensigns  of  human  am 
bition  have  trailed  in  the  dust-  It  will  never  be  foldec 
around  its  standard  till  the  gates  of  Paradise  are  rolled  wide 
open,  and  man  is  redeemed  and  saved. 

The  church  has  withstood  the  revolutions  of  time,  and  the 
mutations  of  fortune  ;  the  desolating  tread  of  ages,  and  the  dis- 
integration and  downfall  of  dynasties  ;  the  ravages  of  famine, 
and  the  wasting  scourge  of  the  pestilence.  It  outlived  the 
flood,  the  confusion  of  languages,  the  brickyards  of  Goshen  ; 
it  outlived  the  temple,  outlived  the  Jews,  outlived  the  astro- 
logical lore  of  the  Chaldeans,  the  mythology  of  Greece  and 
Rome  ;  it  outlived  the  oppositions,  the  ecclesiastical  and  po- 
litical convulsions  of  the  dark  ages.  In  the  very  hour  of  its 
extremest  discouragement  when  weeping  piety  thought  all 
was  lost  and  laughing  iniquity  thought  all  was  gained,  the 
sun  of  the  Reformation  shone  from  its  sanctuary  and  illu- 
mined the  world.  It  has  been  attacked  by  Devil  and  de- 
mons, physics  and  metaphysics,  learning  and  ignorance, 
genius  and  talent,  stratagem  and  chicanery,  intrigue  and 
diplomacy,  irony  and  ridicule,  sarcasm  and  invective,  books 
and  presses,  mails  and  rostrums,  sabres  and  cannons,  prisons 
and  inquisitions  ;  in  fact,  all  that  the  human  mind  has  been 
able  to  invent,  human  skill  execute,  and  the  human  wisdom 
employ,  have  been  arrayed  against  it ;  but  irresistible  and 
plenipotent,  it  has  pressed  its  foes  from  field  to  field,  and 
driven  its  conquering  chariot  over  their  fallen  armies. 

It  is  advancing  and  placing  itself  in  sublimer  attitudes 
every  day.  It  wrll  extend  wider,  rise  higher,  and  shine 
brighter,  till  deception  and  error  will  vanish  from  the  horizon 
of  man's  night,  and  leave  it  ablaze  with  effulgent  day.  It 
will  extend  its  triumphs  till  human  pride  and  human  obsti- 
nacy shall  meekly  kneel  and  kiss  its  sceptre  ;  till  creeds  and 
theories  shall  lay  their  crowns  at  its  feet  ;  and  all  the  gov- 
ernments shall  be  swallowed  up  and  lost  in  an  all-absorbing, 


ETERNITY  OF   GOD.  6$ 

overshadowing,  and  universal  Theocracy  ;  till  the  Hindoo 
with  his  Shaster  and  Veda,  the  Parsee  with  Zendavesta,  the 
Buddhist  with  his  Bedagat,  the  Jewish  Rabbin  with  his  Tal- 
mud, the  Mohammedan  with  his  Koran,  shall  all  come 
trooping  up  and  pile  the  volumes  of  their  faith  in  one  grand 
pyre  at  its  threshold — angels  will  kindle  it,  and  the  curling 
flames  wreathing  away  into  heaven  will  announce  to  the 
universe  the  completion  of  its  victories  and  the  perfection  of 
its  glories. 

Married  to  the  Lamb,  with  the  moon,  emblem  of  mutation, 
under  her  feet,  the  Church  is  travelling  to  her  coronation. 
She  is  attired  like  a  queen  :  her  robe  woven  of  sunbeams, 
and  twelve  lustrous  stars  shine  in  her  crown.  And  by  and 
by,  while  heaven's  orchestras  thunder,  and  antiphonies  harmo- 
nious and  grand  go  pealing  from  bank  to  bank  of  the  river 
of  life,  and  every  breath  of  celestial  ether  is  tremulous  with 
music  paeans  and  praise,  she  will  ascend  the  hill  of  God,  ap- 
proach the  Father's  throne  and  present  all  her  children  there, 
born  in  travail  below,  receive  the  Father's  blessing  and 
welcome,  and  escorted  by  angels,  her  jewelled  hand  resting 
in  the  crucified  hand  of  the  Son  of  God  and  of  Mary,  will 
mount  the  throne  by  His  side  and  be  a  queen  forever.  Glo- 
rious Alma  Mater  !  Beautiful,  beautiful  and  blessed  Mother  ! 
She  fed  us  on  the  milk  of  the  Word  when  babes,  on  meat 
when  stronger.  Who  does  not  love  her?  Can  we  forget 
her  ?  No,  never,  never,  never.  "  If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jeru- 
salem, let  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth."  "  Of 
old  hast  thou  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth :  and  the 
heavens  are  the  work  of  thy  hands.  They  shall  perish,  but 
thou  shalt  endure  :  yea,  all  of  them  shall  wax  old  like  a  gar- 
ment ;  as  a  vesture  shalt  thou  change  them,  and  they  shall 
be  changed  :  but  thou  art  the  same,  and  thy  years  shall  have 
no  end.  The  children  of  thy  servants  shall  continue,  and 
their  seed  shall  be  everlasting  before  thee.' 


SERMON   VI. 

THE    LAW   AND    THE    GOSPEL  (DISCOURSE  I.). 

''  Do  we  then  make  void  the  law  through  faith?  God  forbid;  yea  we 
establish  the  law." — Rom.  iii.  31. 

THE  student  of  Christian  theology  is  perplexed  and  con- 
founded upon  the  very  threshold  of  his  studies,  by  artifi- 
cial, arbitrary,  and  useless  distinctions.  For  illustration,  he 
reads  of  the  "law  of  Christ  "as  distinguished  from  "angelic 
law  "  and  "  Adamic  law ; "  of  the  "  Law  of  Love,"  as  distin- 
guished from  the  "original  law  of  perfect  purity;"  of  the 
"  law  of  Faith,"  "  the  evangelical  law  of  liberty,"  "  the  Law 
of  the  Gospel,"  as  distinguished  from  the  "  moral  law ;  "  of 
the  "  Evangelical,  mediatorial,  remedying  law  of  our  Re- 
deemer," as  distinguished  from  the  "  anti-evangelical,  Christ- 
less,  remediless  law  of  our  Creator." 

He  learns  from  one,  that  the  moral  law,  meaning  the  law 
under  which  Adam  was  placed,  is  repealed  or  annulled,  and 
that  man  is  released  from  its  claims.  He  learns  from  others 
that  moral  law  is  not  repealed,  but  that  its  claims  are  met 
by  Christ,  therefore  set  aside.  Who  are  these  ?  They  are 
not  Antinomians,  for  they  do  not  leave  us  without  law  ;  they 
place  us  under  what  they  term  the  "  law  of  the  Gospel,"  a 
"  milder  law,"  called  "the  law  of  Christ."  When  the  stu- 
dent wishes  to  know  what  the  Gospel  is,  some  tell  them  it  is 
all  the  doctrines,  precepts,  promises,  and  threatenings  con- 
tained in  the  New  Testament  ;  others  tell  him  it  is  all  the 
doctrines,  promises,  precepts,  and  threatenings  contained  in 
both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.     This  is  the  doctrine  of 


THE   LAW   AND   THE   GOSPEL— DISCOURSE   I.     65 

some  Armenian  divines — Methodist  divines.  Such  a  doc- 
trine, if  believed,  gives  the  theological  and  Bible  student 
loose  and  distracted  ideas  of  God's  government,  incorrect 
ideas  of  His  law,  inferior  notions  of  the  standard  of  perfec- 
tion, and  in  many  instances  loose  notions  of  duty. 

The  law  of  God  is  one — never  differing — is  universal  and 
perpetual  in  its  obligation.  We  are  under  this  law.  We  un- 
derstand by  law,  the  rule  given  by  God  for  the  government 
of  free  moral  beings,  that  rule  of  action,  which  is  connate 
with  the  existence  of  every  intelligent  creature  God  has 
made,  usually  called  the  moral  law — I  do  not  mean  the  deca- 
logue. I  wish  to  establish  the  truth  of  this  position,  and 
show  the  relative  position  of  law  and  Gospel. 

I.  Let  us  examine  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  moral  law. 
What  must  be  the  origin  and  nature  of  any  law  governing 
moral  beings  as  such  ?  It  is  necessary,  we  know.  How  is 
law  made  ?  Follow  the  argument.  God  is  the  idea  of  in- 
finity in  its  interminable  applications,  in  its  indivisible  one- 
ness. The  spirituality  and  simplicity  of  His  being,  the  in- 
discerptibility  of  His  essence,  infinite  in  every' quality  of  its 
character  and  emanation  of  its  nature,  is  the  grand  idea  that 
God  can  only  have.  He  is  Omnipresent,  Omniscient,  Omni- 
potent, Immutable,  Eternal  and  Infinitely  wise.  Every  one 
of  these  perfections  logically  requires  the  others.  Combined 
they  form  a  being  of  such  infinite  majesty,  "the  heaven  of 
heavens  cannot  contain  Him."     He  is  here  ! 

Entering  into  the  unity  of  His  being  are  the  absolute  and 
infinite  qualities  of  Holiness,  Justice,  Goodness,  and  Truth. 
These  constitute  what  is  called  His  moral  nature.  What  a 
symmetrical  embodiment  of  inimitable  beauties  !  what  an 
equilibrium  of  perfect  qualities  !  Holiness,  without  a  spot 
or  blemish ;  Justice,  without  partiality  and  compromise ; 
Infinite  Goodness,  and  Infinite  Truth.  These  qualities,  like 
suns,  full  orbed  and  blazing,  woven  together  with  their  own 


66  SERMONS. 

bright  beams,  enter  into  the  unity  of  His  essential  being,  and 
constitute  what  is  called  His  moral  nature.  Examine  that 
nature.  What  is  its  essence  ?  Ask  the  angels  ;  ask  the  re- 
deemed on  earth ;  ask  John  upon  his  throne  judging  one  of 
the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel — "God  is  love"  says  he;  It  is 
love.  God  is  not  a  phlegmatic  and  callous  abstraction  ;  not 
an  immovably  severe  and  awfully  majestic  being,  without 
affection  and  feeling,  but  a  God  whose  nature  in  the  highest 
sense  is  love — love,  active  and  positive. 

God  has  a  fixed  and  determinate  constitutional  nature. 
Every  thing  which  He  makes,  or  which  is  the  offspring  of 
His  mind,  bears  the  impress  of  His  determinate  nature. 
He  created  intelligent  beings.  His  fixed  and  determinate 
nature,  with  certain  limitations  and  modifications,  fixed  and 
determined  their  natures  ;  their  fixed  and  determinate  natures 
sustain  fixed  and  unalterable  relations  to  their  Author  and 
to  each  other ;  these  fixed  and  unalterable  relations  give 
birth  to  fixed  and  unalterable  laws  governing  the  created 
with  reference  to  their  Author,  and  to  each  other — laws 
springing  from  God  by  a  logical  spontaneity  as  the  transcript 
of  His  nature,  the  expression  of  His  will.  The  moral  law 
is  an  expression  of  God's  will,  and  God's  will  is  God's  nature. 
It  has  its  origin  in  the  nature  and  fitness  of  things.  It  is 
not  arbitrary,  for  it  arises  out  of  relations,  yet  relations  when 
properly  traced  rest  finally  and  primarily  in  the  nature  of 
God.  Here  is  the  ultimate  upon  which  we  repose  at  last ; 
here  is  the  point  of  "  necessity,"  and  to  search  for  the  fitness 
of  things  lying  aback  of  it  is  to  search  for  something  beyond 
necessity,  which  something  is  essential  to  the  existence  of 
that  which  is  the  necessity  itself.  This  process  of  reasoning 
being  true,  what  principles  must  necessarily  constitute  the 
structure  of  a  code  of  laws  for  the  government  of  moral 
beings,  if  such  being  there  be  ?  The  principles  of  His  moral 
nature  as  a  matter  of  course.     The  law  accepted  in  God's 


THE  LAW  AND   THE   GOSPEL— DISCOURSE  I.      6j 

nature  must  be  the  law  given  to  govern  the  nature  of  His 
creatures.  It  must  be  one  like  His  moral  character — not 
contrary  to  it. 

Now  let  us  copy  the  few  beams  of  God's  moral  nature 
which  struggle  through  the  darkness  and  throw  it  in  sym- 
metrical ambrotype  upon  a  canvas.  This  kind  of  reasoning 
has  its  philosophical  and  metaphysical  subtleties,  but  some 
light  will  scintillate  through  the  darkness  sufficient  to  illu- 
minate our  picture.  The  perfections  of  God's  moral  nature 
are  Holiness,  Justice,  Goodness,  and  Truth — its  essence  is 
Love.  The  law  for  the  government  of  moral  beings,  or 
moral  law,  being  necessarily  a  copy  of  His  moral  nature, 
must  then  be  Holy — requiring  perfect  purity  of  character. 
It  must  be  inflexibly  and  immutably  just — recognizing  the 
Divine  right  of  the  Law-giver  to  make  laws,  the  obligation 
and  duty  of  its  subjects  to  obey,  defining  its  sanctions  and 
apportioning  them  according  to  merit.  It  must  be  the 
Truth — an  exact  representation  of  the  whole  nature  of  God, 
and  certain  and  veracious  in  its  retributions.  It  must  be 
Good — embodying  the  Divine  benevolence  and  excellency, 
to  make  it  admir-ed  and  elevating,  and  to  promote  the  hap- 
piness of  the  subject  in  the  same  ratio  with  his  obedience. 
Its  essence  and  actuating  principle  must  be  Love  to  the  ut- 
most compass  of  its  requirements,  and  the  utmost  boundary 
of  its  applications.  To  epitomize  it :  The  law  must  be  Holy, 
Just,  Good,  and  Truthful.  It  is  the  grand  law  of  Love — ex- 
act transcript  of  God. 

Let  us  reason  from  another  source.  God  created  angels, 
men,  and  probably  centuplicated  millions  of  intelligent 
beings,  who  tenant  every  star  and  sphere  in  the  universe  of 
created  existence.  To  all  these  He  sustains  the  relation  of 
Creator,  for  He  made  them  ;  Preserver,  for  he  upholds  their 
dependent  being  ;  Benefactor,  for  they  are  the  beneficiaries 
of  His  care  and  bounty  ;  Governor,  for  they  are  the  subjects 


68  SERMONS. 

of  what  is  undeniably  His  own  empire.  Out  of  these  rela- 
tions naturally  arises  a  rule  governing  the  conduct  of  the 
created  to  the  Creator  ;  the  preserved,  to  the  Preserver ; 
the  beneficiary,  to  the  Benefactor;  and  the  subject,  to  the 
Governor  ;  and  be  this  rule  what  it  may  it  is  law — the  whole 
or  part  of  moral  law.  All  these  intelligent  beings  being  of 
like  nature,  and  placed  in  communities  as  far  as  we  know, 
and  having  the  same  Creator,  Preserver,  Benefactor,  and 
Governor,  sustain  intimate  relations  to  each  other,  out  of 
which  naturally  arises  a  rule  governing  their  conduct  towards 
each  other ;  and  be  this  rule  what  it  may,  it  is  law — the 
whole  or  part  of  moral  law. 

Now,  from  the  intimate  relations  existing  between  the 
creature  and  God,  the  creature  and  his  fellow,  reasoning  a 
priori,  what  must  be  the  nature  of  this  law  ?  It  must  be  holy 
— for  what  naturally  arises  out  of  a  dependent  and  friendly 
relation,  could  not  possibly  require  anything  contradictory 
of  the  relation,  but  in  conformity  with  it ;  and  the  relation 
itself  being  of  Divine  ordination,  must  be  holy.  It  must  be 
just — for  the  relations  being  equal,  its  claims  must  be  im- 
partial ;  and  the  relation  existing,  its  claims  must  exist  ;  and 
conformity  to  the  claims  must  produce  happiness,  and  non- 
conformity must  produce  misery.  It  must  be  good — for, 
arising  out  of  the  harmony  of  relations,  it  must  be  excellent, 
benevolent,  and  elevating.  It  must  be  truth — for  if  it  is 
the  result  of  relations  it  must  be  the  exact  representation  of 
them,  and  if  law  at  all  it  must  be  reliable  in  its  sanctions. 
Its  essence  and  actuating  principle  must  be  Love — for  a 
holy  creature  sustaining  such  relations  to  God  naturally  loves 
Him,  and  cheerfully  obeys  Him ;  and  a  holy  creature  sus- 
taining such  relations  to  his  fellows,  naturally  loves  them, 
therefore  never  does  them  harm,  but  good.  To  epitomize 
it,  the  law  is  holy,  just,  good,  and  truthful.  It  is  the  grand 
law  of  Love. 


THE  LAW   AND   THE   GOSPEL— DISCOURSE   I.      69 

Let  us  see  what  its  character  is  as  revealed  in  the  Bible. 
Paul  says  in  Romans  :  "  The  law  is  holy,  and  the  command- 
ment holy,  just,  and  good."  The  Psalmist  says:  "Thy 
law  is  the  Truth."  The  law  according  to  these  Scriptures, 
is  holy,  just,  good,  and  truthful.  Now  what  is  revealed  as 
its  essence  ?  Paul  says  :  "  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law." 
Christ  says:  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all 
thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind  ;  "  and 
"  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  On  these  two  commandments 
hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets."  Again,  we  arrive  at  the 
same  result.  Reason  as  we  may ;  from  the  character  of 
God  ;  from  the  nature  of  man's  relations;  from  the  express 
revelations  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  and  we  discover  it  is  the 
same  law  of  Love — holy,  just,  good,  and  truthful.  Reason 
from  the  nature  and  certainty  of  its  rewards  j  the  nature  and 
certainty  of  its  punishments,  as  revealed  in  the  Bible,  seen 
in  human  history,  and  in  human  experience,  we  arrive  at  the 
same  result. 

II.  The  moral  law  is  immutable.  It  is  unchangeable  in 
its  principles  and  requirements  from  its  very  nature.  It  is  a 
perfect  and  accurate  transcript  of  the  perfections  of  God's 
nature.  It  is  this  from  necessity,  as  I  have  already  shown 
you.  It  could  not,  therefore,  change  unless  God's  nature 
changed.  And  the  idea  of  change  with  reference  to  God 
would  be  fatal  to  His  perfection,  therefore,  annihilate  Him, 
annihilate  His  government,  annihilate  every  living  and  exist- 
ing thing.  Wild  anarchy  would  rush  upon  anarchy,  and  the 
columns  of  God's  universe  careering  would  topple  every  ma- 
terial and  spiritual  entity  into  nothing,  and  uncreated  night 
would  shroud  universal  emptiness  with  utter  darkness. 

The  moral  law  is  immutable  because  it  arises  out  of  de- 
terminate relations,  whose  character  is  made  by  God  acting 
out  in  creation  His  own  nature.  God  cannot  repeal  it,  01 
give   any  other,   without    contradicting    His  nature,   conse- 


70  SERMONS. 

quently  destroying  Himself.  God  "  cannot  lie  " — and  His  law 
is  but  the  truth  of  every  relation  out  of  which  it  springs  in 
living  expression.  The  relation  an  intelligent  creature  sus- 
tains to  God  and  its  fellow,  is  not  fictitious,  but  real,  hence  a 
truth.  The  law  proscribing  duty  arising  out  of  such  relation, 
if  it  be  a  natural  spontaneous  result,  is  but  the  character  of 
the  relation  duplicated,  therefore  it  is  truth  ;  and  truth  from  its 
very  nature  cannot  change,  without  losing  its  entire  charac- 
ter as  truth,  therefore  its  existence. 

In  the  Eastern  Continent,  there  is  a  vast  desert  belt,  five 
thousand  and  six  hundred  miles  long,  with  a  woof  of  rocky 
plains  and  sterile  knolls,  woven  into  a  warp  of  burning  sands, 
and  hung  around  the  broad  shoulders  of  torrid  Africa,  bind- 
ing it  to  the  globe,  and  lapping  over  one-third  of  Asia.  This 
huge  desert  stretches  from  the  Atlantic  coast  of  Africa  to 
Central  Hindostan  in  Asia.  Amid  its  sterility  are  many 
beautiful  oases,  which  lie  like  kisses  upon  its  swarthy  cheeks, 
and  many  verdant  valleys  smile  along  the  streams  with  which 
its  parched  face  is  dimpled. 

Near  the  centre  of  this  arid  zone,  lying  in  the  fork  of  the 
Red  Sea,  is  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai.  The  mountains  of  Sinai, 
situated  in  the  Peninsula,  are  intricate,  confused,  and  cluster- 
ing peaks  of  limestone,  sandstone,  red  and  gray  granite,  un- 
relieved b}r  verdure,  rent  with  a  thousand  gorges,  and  pro- 
miscuously piled,  precipitately  and  sublimely,  in  rugged 
grandeur  to  the  maximum  height  of  nine  thousand  three  hun- 
dred feet.  The  scenery  looks  as  if  a  tremendous  explosion 
from  the  centre  of  the  earth  had  blown  out  the  granite  ribs 
of  the  globe,  and  piled  them  endwise  and  pell-mell,  tower- 
ing into  grotesque,  daring,  and  splintered  peaks,  breaking 
into  a  thousand  badly-balanced  and  salient  crags. 

Surrounded  by  mountains  of  granite,  in  the  very  heart  of 
this  system  of  mountains,  is  a  small  plain  called  Rahab, 
about  two  miles  long,  and  averaging  three-fourths  of  a  mile 


THE  LAW   AND   THE   GOSPEL— DISCOURSE   I.      7 1 

wide.  Here  the  children  of  Israel  encamped  when  the  law 
was  given.  Lying  south  of  this  plain,  and  separated  from  all 
the  other  mountains  of  this  region  by  little  verdant  and  odor- 
iferous valleys  running  entirely  around  it,  is  a  lofty  ridge 
about  two  or  three  miles  long.  The  northern  end  of  this 
ridge  rises  in  perpendicular  cliffs  like  a  castellated  wall, 
surmounted  with  three  grand  turrets  or  peaks,  fifteen  hundred 
feet  high — right  out  of  the  plain  of  Rahah,  and  stretching 
nearly  across  the  plain,  and  separated  from  the  outside  moun- 
tains by  the  little  valleys  before  mentioned.  This  northern 
end  of  the  ridge  is  visible  from  every  part  of  the  plain,  and 
is  called  Horeb.  It  was  here  the  Divine  glory  sat  enthroned 
in  the  sight  of  all  Israel  during  the  days  of  the  giving  of  the 
law. 

The  southern  end  of  this  ridge  is  broader  than  the  northern 
end,  and  is  about  two  miles  from  the  northern  end,  or  Horeb, 
and  is  hidden  from  a  spectator  in  the  plain  of  Rahah  by  the 
intervening  peaks  of  Horeb.  It  is  called  the  Mount  of 
Moses.  This  peak  is  higher  than  Horeb,  and  sits  propped 
on  awful  and  frowning  buttresses  of  red  granite,  capped  with 
gray  granite  fantastically  piled  into  a  kind  of  diadem  and 
worn  with  the  oddest  dignity  and  uniquest  grandeur.  While 
the  Lord  manifested  His  glory  to  Israel  from  the  top  of  Horeb, 
on  the  northern  end,  it  is  here  where  He  probably  manifested 
Himself  to  Moses,  and  where  Moses  communed  with  Him. 
And  there  it  stands — Sinai  stands — to-day,  unchanged,  and 
precisely  as  it  was  when  the  foot  of  God  trod  its  solitary 
peaks  more  than  three  thousand  years  ago. 

Since  then,  cities  have  sprung  up  out  of  the  wilderness, 
became  emporiums,  then  perished,  and  their  ruins  now  are 
the  study  and  wonder  of  archaeologists.  Kingdoms  and 
empires  have  arisen  and  passed  away.  Civilizations  have 
successively  played  their  parts,  run  their  cycles,  and  given 
the  way  for  newer  and  higher  forms.     Forty  years  afterwards 


72  SERMONS. 

the  children  of  the  fathers  who  stood  and  trembled  under  the 
quaking  mount,  passed  over  the  Jordan,  and  took  possession 
of  their  Canaan.  For  fifteen  hundred  years  they  were  a  great 
nation  with  a  thrilling  and  eventful  history,  and  now  dena- 
tionalized, are  scattered  all  over  the  world  without  a  head — 
the  ruins  of  their  ancient  capital  buried  twenty  to  fifty  feet 
beneath  the  modern  city,  where  swaggering  Turks  play  a 
travesty  upon  government,  a  caricature  upon  religion,  and  a 
parody  upon  civilization.  Since  then  Christ  has  come  and 
changed  the  philosophy  and  religion  of  the  world,  and  the 
wheels  of  time  have  rolled  thirty  centuries  nearer  the  Judg- 
ment. 

But  still  Sinai  stands  uninhabited  and  uninhabitable,  save 
by  a  few  monks  and  hermits,  as  the  Holy  of  Holies,  of  na- 
ture's temple,  walled  in  forever  from  the  curious  world  by 
mountains  of  granite,  and  there  it  will  be  at  the  Judgment. 
Grand  old  Sinai !  Sublime  in  its  solitude  !  Isolated  from 
the  world.  The  clink  of  machinery,  the  whistling  of  the  loco- 
motive, the  roar  of  battle,  were  never  heard  among  its  gray 
old  peaks.  They  have  stood  there  silent  since  God  spake 
from  their  summits,  save  when  the  nimble-footed  lightning 
has  danced  over  their  granite  boulders,  and  heaven's  thun- 
ders have  rumbled  among  their  crags.  But  there  was  a  time 
when  God  manifested  Himself  there.  It  was  about  the 
middle  of  May  fourteen  centuries  before  Christ  was  born. 

The  children  of  Israel,  numbering  six  hundred  thousand, 
besides  women  and  children,  were  encamped  in  the  plain  of 
Rahah,  and  in  the  mouths  of  the  valleys  breaking  into  the 
plain.  One  morning  the  clouds  began  to  gather  around  the 
peaks  growing  denser  and  blacker  every  moment.  From  the 
turbid  and  inky  embankment  great  pieces  and  murky  fleeces 
of  cloud  folded  off,  and  lapped  around  the  spurs  and  envel- 
oped the  ravines,  till  finally  every  peak  was  hidden,  and  the 
summit  of  the  mount  seemed  changed  itself  into  angry  agita 


THE  LAW  AND   THE   GOSPEL — DISCOURSE   I.      73 

ted  cloud,  instinct  with  latent  tempests,  and  lifting  itself  high 
above  the  surrounding  mountains.  The  sun  rising  in  the 
east  flung  its  splintered  pencils  against  the  coliginous  walls 
of  the  dreadful  pile,  leaving  a  kiss  of  fire  burning  upon  the 
cheek  of  every  cloudy  fold  which  rippled  from  bottom 
to  top — the  long  shadow  falling  duskily  away  to  the  west, 
and  spreading  a  night  of  horror  over  the  neighboring  fast- 
nesses. 

By  and  by  the  lightning  began  to  shimmer — the  electric 
flashes  trembling  on  the  face  of  the  cloud,  the  cloud  looking 
blacker  between  the  flashes  ;  the  lightnings  every  moment 
becoming  more  frequent,  till  the  cloud  was  woven  into  an 
electric  plexus  by  the  thousand  electric  shuttles,  drawing 
lightning  threads,  flying,  crossing,  decussating,  piercing  the 
darkness,  and  blistering  every  rock,  hissing  through  every 
stony  cranny,  and  licking  along  every  defile.  Great  thunders 
springing  from  peak  to  peak,  and  rolling  along  the  gorges, 
the  whole  desert  roaring  in  echo.  Such  a  dreadful  prelude 
appropriately  heralded  Divinity.  And  now  the  Great  God, 
the  legislative  Jehovah,  descended  in  fire  from  heaven, 
and  as  His  royal  feet  struck  Sinai's  granite  top,  the  moun- 
tain reeled  and  quaked  and  smoked  like  a  furnace — the 
smoke  curling  and  rising  volume  after  volume,  ascending 
the  sky,  and  marking  and  covering  the  track  of  descending 
Deity. 

God,  the  law-giver,  was  upon  His  throne.  A  trumpet  as 
terrible  as  the  trumpet  of  Judgment  which  will  awake  the 
dead,  announced  His  presence.  A  trumpet  summoned  hu- 
manity to  receive  the  law,  the  same  trumpet  will  resummon 
humanity  to  be  judged  by  the  law.  Still  sounded  the  awful 
trumpet,  and  its  thunder  blasts  shook  the  mountains.  Moses 
trembled  — the  people  fled  from  the  mount.  Inexorable  law 
was  king  this  day.  If  man  has  not  a  mediative  Moses  to 
ascend  the  mount,  man  is  undone.  But  louder,  and  still 
A* 


74  SERMONS. 

louder,  sounded  the  trumpet,  and  its  thunder  tones  forming 
words,  shaped  themselves  into  a  curse  :  "  Cursed  is  every 
one  that  continueth  not  in  all  things  which  are  written  in  the 
book  of  the  law  to  do  them."  And  the  dreadful  curse,  sig- 
nificant of  law's  aspect  to  a  sinner,  like  a  red-hot  bolt  from 
heaven's  artillery  went  roaring  down  the  centuries. 


is 

SERMON  VII. 

THE    LAW   AND    THE    GOSPEL    (DISCOURSE    II.). 

••  Do  we  then  make  void  the  law  through  faith  ?    God  forbid :  yea,  we 
establish  the  law."— Rom.  iii.  31. 

III.    God's  law  cannot  pardon. 

NO  law*can  ;  call  it  law  of  the  Gospel,  law  of  Christ,  law 
of  faith,  or  what  you  will,  if  it  is  law  it  cannot  pardon. 
Organization  is  necessary  to  the  existence,  identity,  stability, 
and  harmony  of  God's  moral  government.  Law  is  the  essen- 
tial basis  to  all  organization.  In  fact,  there  is  no  government 
without  organization,  and  there  is  no  organization  without 
law.  The  conclusion  is,  law  is  a  necessity.  If  law  is  essen- 
tial to  organization,  and  organization  is  essential  to  govern- 
ment, then  the  violation  of  law  produces  disorganization,  and 
is  destructive  of  government.  This  disorganization  and  de- 
struction constitutes  a  penalty  of  law,  and  follows  the  viola- 
tion of  law  with  the  certainty  of  cause  and  effect.  The  law 
which  preserves  and  protects  the  obedient  subject,  destroys 
him  when  disobedient.  Any  man  can  see  from  the  nature 
of  the  penalty  of  law,  that  as  law  is  a  necessity  to  organiza- 
tion, so  penalty  is  necessary  to  God's  law — both  are  necessi- 
ties. This  being  true,  pardon,  which  implies  to  set  aside  the 
penalty,  is  impossible  in  a  system  of  law. 

Again,  God's  whole  system,  including  things,  powers,  and 
principles,  is  a  unity.  The  law  governing  them  is  a  unity. 
A  rebellious  subject,  therefore,  extends  the  fibres  of  his  in- 
fluence throughout  the  entire  system  of  God,  unbalancing 
and  disorganizing  the  whole.     To  save  the  entire  system  of 


76  SERMONS. 

God  the  rebel  must  be  destroyed,  and  everything  affected  by 
the  rebellion  must  be  destroyed,  and  the  system  of  God  re- 
stored and  balanced.  Again,  pardon  is  impossible.  The 
rebellious  subject  must  suffer  the  penalty,  or  if  he  is  par- 
doned the  law  cannot  do  it.  Some  one  must  meet  the  de- 
mands of  law — compensate  the  system — and  that  one  must 
be  connected  with  man.  Absolute  pardon  cannot  be  ad- 
mitted. 

If  law  can  pardon,  it  can  destroy  itself.  If  it  does  pardon 
it  does  destroy  itself;  it  renders  itself  null  ;  it  is  to  lower  its 
demands ;  it  is  to  violate  every  relation  upon  which  it  is 
founded  ;  it  is  to  make  God  encourage  sin.  Indkorable  and 
unbending,  it  demands  satisfaction  commensurate  with  the 
criminality  of  the  guilt.  Its  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  truth, 
and  essence,  make  it  unpardoning.  Each  quality  does  it  ; 
united  they  do  it.  Paul  recognizes  so  much  when  he  says, 
"  If  there  had  been  a  law  which  could  have  given  life,  verily, 
righteousness  should  have  been  by  the  law."  Law  cannot 
pardon.  Mr.  Fletcher,  the  author  of  the  celebrated  "  Checks 
to  Antinomians,"  says  that  "  Gospel  law,"  as  distinguished 
from  "  Adamic  law,"  can — that  we  are  under  a  law  adapted 
to  our  present  state  and  circumstances,  which  he  terms  a 
"milder  Law."  He  speaks  of  an  "evangelical,  mediatorial, 
remedying  law  of  our  Redeemer  "  as  distinguished  from  what 
he  terms  the  "anti-evangelical,  Christless,  remediless  law  of 
our  Creator,"  by  which  he  means  the  great  moral  law  given 
to  Adam. 

The  phrases,  tl  Gospel  law  "  and  "Adamic  law,"  are  a  per- 
plexing misapplication  of  terms.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
Gospel  law,  unless  is  meant  by  it  the  mode  of  gospel  action, 
as  Paul  frequently  uses  the  phrase,  and  you  may  as  well  say 
"  Abrahamic  law,"  u  Davidic  law,"  "  Calviniclaw,"  and  "  Wes- 
leyan  law,"  because  such  persons  as  Abraham,  David,  Calvin, 
and  Wesley  were  subject  to  it,  as  to  say  "Adamic  law  "  be- 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL — DISCOURSE  II.        f] 

cause  Adam  was  subject  to  it.  The  distinction  itself  is  ab- 
surd. If  any  part  of  the  Gospel  be  law  as  distinguished  from 
the  Great  Moral  Law  of  God,  it  must  be  something  more  or 
less  than  that  law ;  it  must  add  something  to  it  or  take  some- 
thing from  it,  or  there  is  no  distinction  ;  and  the  very  ide? 
of  its  perfection  forbids  either. 

If  it  does  superinduce  something  upon  the  law,  it  onl_y 
makes  the  law  more  condemnatory  ;  hence,  if  possible,  less 
disposed  to  pardon.  If  it  takes  something  from  it,  and  be- 
comes indeed  a  "milder  law,"  it  involves  the  absurdity  of 
God  compromising  with  sin,  of  compromising  with  man,  be- 
cause man  had  wilfully  transgressed  His  law,  which  being 
created  holy,  he  could  have  kept — and  that  man  was  placed 
under  a  law  which  required  imperfect  obedience  and  an  im- 
perfect holiness.  That  God  would  even  bend  His  law  to  the 
contracted  capabilities  of  the  creature  for  obedience,  in  place 
of  strengthening  those  capabilities  to  the  full  measure  of  the 
law's  requirements,  is  an  animadversion  upon  His  holiness — ■ 
much  less  that  He  would  stoop  to  a  compromise  so  utterly 
contradictory  to  His  nature. 

As  to  "  the  Evangelical,  mediatorial,  remedying  law  of  our 
Redeemer,"  there  is  no  authority  for  its  existence  in  the 
Bible.  A  law  essentially  possessing  such  elements,  the  very 
elements  qualified  to  rob  it  of  its  Sanctions,  to  neutralize  and 
destroy  the  force  of  its  penalty  forever,  is  surely  law  bent 
upon  self-destruction.  But  cannot  God  pardon  from  mere 
prerogative  ?  He  cannot.  Is  not  this  a  reflection  upon  His 
Omnipotence  ?  It  is  not.  Omnipotence  is  only  power  in 
the  sense  of  mere  "executive  force."  He  can  make  worlds 
— He  can  do  anything  which  force  can  accomplish — nothing 
else.     He  has  no  prerogative  above  what  is  essentially  right. 

IV.  TJ lis  great  moral  law  is  universal.  Its  origin,  nature, 
principles,  and  requirements,  indicate  its  universality.  It  is 
the  law  governing  angels,  and  archangels.      It  is  the  law 


78  SERMONS. 

governing  every  intelligent  creature  on  all  worlds,  and  I  be- 
lieve there  are  millions  of  worlds  crowded  with  intelligent 
beings.  It  is  the  law  under  which  Adam  was  placed.  The 
commandment  visible  upon  the  surface  was  not  the  whole  of 
that  law — Adam's  nature  and  relation  to  God  forbid  it.  Yet 
the  commandment  given  him  to  test  his  obedience,  as  the 
representative  of  his  race,  involved  at  once  the  great  princi- 
ple underlying  the  construction  of  moral  law,  the  right  of 
God  to  govern,  and  the  duty  of  man  to  obey. 

It  brought  man  at  once  under  the  law  of  love,  under  its 
protection  if  he  obeyed,  and  under  its  awful  curse  if  he  trans- 
gressed. It  was  nothing  distinct  from  the  great  moral  law, 
but  a  peculiar  manifestation  of  it,  perceived  by  Infinite  wis- 
dom to  be  adapted  to  such  a  state  of  trial  as  Adam  occupied, 
both  as  a  person  and  as  the  representative  of  his  children. 
The  result  is  seen  in  the  tragical  history  of  the  race,  with  its 
thrilling  records  of  sin,  misery  and  woe.  Man  fell  under  the 
curse  of  God's  law,  and  remaining  of  himself  under  the  curse, 
is  evidence  of  the  continued  authority  of  the  law. 

It  is  the  law  under  which  the  Jews  were  placed.  All  the 
commandments  save  that  which  had  reference  to  the  keep- 
ing of  the  Sabbath,  are  but  peculiar  manifestations  of  law 
adapted  to  the  Jewish  people,  in  the  peculiar  relation  which 
they  sustained  to  God  and  the  world.  The  Sabbath,  though 
obligatory,  because  a  law  of  love  enjoins  all  that  God  com- 
mends, is  not  strictly  a  moral  commandment,  because  it  arises 
out  of  no  relation.  (Col.  ii.  16,  17.) 

It  is  the  law  under  which  we  are  placed — call  it  Adamic, 
Angelic,  or  what  we  will. — If  the  law  under  which  intelli- 
gent beings  are  placed  must  necessarily  be  a  transcript  of 
the  Divine  perfections,  it  can  no  more  change  than  God's 
perfections  can  change.  If  it  cannot  change  it  is  perfect, 
hence  could  not  under  any  circumstances  be  abrogated  or 
substituted.     If  it  is  perfect  it  must  require  perfect  obedience 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL — DISCOURSE  II.        79 

— God's  nature  would  not  let  Him  accept  anything  less— 
hence  it  is  perpetually  binding.  If  we  place  it  aside,  we  have 
an  immutable  abstraction,  an  unbending,  useless,  encum- 
brance in  the  consistent  government  of  God.  It  is  charg 
ing  God  with  consummate  folly.  We  feel  that  the  require- 
ments of  such  a  law  must  be  binding  upon  us  now.  We  feel 
safe  when  we  obey,  unsafe  when  we  disobey. 

If  the  law  under  which  intelligent  beings  are  placed  must 
necessarily  arise  out  of  their  relations  to  God  and  one 
another,  it  could  not  change  unless  these  relations  changed. 
Did  the  fall  change  man's  relations  to  God  out  of  which  law 
arises  ?  To  release  man  from  the  claims  of  the  moral  law, 
the  law  under  which  Adam  was  placed,  is  to  say  that  man 
no  longer  sustains  the  relation  of  the  created  to  the  creator  ; 
it  is  to  say  that  God  did  not  make  man ;  that  He  does  not 
preserve  man  ;  that  man  is  not  a  beneficiary  of  His  bounty ; 
that  man  is  no  longer  a  subject  of  His  government. 

The  difficulty  is  not  removed  by  the  assumption,  that 
though  man  is  released  from  the  claims  of  the  moral  law,  that 
he  is  under  another  called  the  law  of  Christ,  or  the  law  of 
the  Gospel.  If  he  is  under  another,  God's  character  and 
man's  relations  require  it  must  be  precisely  like  the  first,  and 
if  like  the  first  it  must  require  perfect  obedience,  and  have 
the  same  penalty.  This  is  precisely  like  tradition  says  the 
legislature  of  Virginia  once  did.  In  order  to  retain  a  mem- 
ber of  its  body  who  had  fought  a  duel,  it  repealed  the  law 
against  duelling,  admitted  the  transgressing  member  to  his 
seat,  then,  for  the  good  of  the  old  commonwealth,  immedi- 
ately re-enacted  the  law.  Take  your  seat,  sir,  and  assume  the 
privileges  of  a  peer  in  this  legislative  body ;  the  law  you  vio- 
lated we  abrogated,  the  law  you  are  under  now  you  have  not 
broken. 

That  Christ  met  the  claims  of  the  moral  law  and  thereby 
released  us  from  them,  placing  us  under  the   Gospel  law,  is 


80  SERMONS. 

happily  answered  by  Dr.  Fisk  in  this  short  sentence  :  u  Sins 
atoned  for  "  then  "  need  no  pardon,  and  sins  pardoned  need 
no  atonement.  That  is,  pardon  and  atonement  do  not 
meet,  in  reference  to  the  claims  of  the  same  law."  i.  Adam 
broke  the  moral  law.  2.  The  atonement  was  made  with 
reference  to  the  violated  claims  of  that  law.  3.  If  the  law 
cannot  pardon,  we  have  pardon  only  through  the  virtue  of 
that  atonement.  4.  The  sins  pardoned  must  be  offences 
of  the  Great  Moral  Law  of  God,  with  reference  to  which  the 
atonement  was  instituted.  5.  And  if  they  be  offences  against 
that  law,  that  law  must  be  in  force.  Pardon  and  atonement 
must  meet  with  reference  to  the  claims  of  the  same  law. 

That  we  are  under  the  law  given  to  Adam  is  clear  from 
the  federal  representative  character  of  Christ.  We  were 
placed  upon  probation  in  Adam,  and  fell.  For  our  restora- 
tion we  were  placed  upon  probation  a  second  time  in  Christ 
our  representative,  who  is  called  the  second  Adam.  If  in  our 
representative  we  broke  the  great  moral  law  of  God,  which 
is  true  in  a  certain  sense,  Jesus  Christ  our  second  represen- 
tative, in  order  to  redeem,  must  come  under  the  same  law, 
obey  it,  and  suffer  its  curse.  He  must  obey  the  law  violated 
at  first,  in  order  to  redeem  us  from  under  the  penalty  of  that 
law.  For  certainly  we  were  under  the  penalty  of  no  law  save 
the  law  violated.  Indeed  if  the  law  had  been  abrogated 
there  would  have  been  no  necessity  for  a  Savior. 

Hear  the  Scripture  :  "As  by  one  man's  disobedience, 
many  were  made  sinners,  so  by  the  obedience  of  one  shall 
many  be  made  righteous."  It  is  clear,  the  disobedience  of 
one,  and  the  obedience  of  the  other,  must  be  with  reterence 
to  the  same  law.  It  is  also  clear  that  the  sinners  and  righteous 
here  spoken  of,  were  sinful  and  righteous  with  reference  to 
the  same  law.  Again,  the  obligation  of  Christ's  example  of 
obedience  is  enforced  by  Peter  and  himself  upon  us.  If  He 
kept  the  moral  law,  its  obligation  rests  upon  us.     He  and 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL— DISCOURSE  II.        8 1 

Adam  were  equally  our  representatives  ;  and  all  admit  if 
Adam  had  kept  the  law  that  its  obligation  would  have  rested 
upon  us — the  other  follows. 

I  will  notice  two  reasons  assigned  to  support  the  opposite 
argument  :  i.  Dr.  Clarke  says,  in  his  notes  on  Romans,  more 
than  once,  that  this  law  was  abrogated.  He  says  with  refer- 
ence to  the  fall,  "  The  moral  law  was  broken,  and  did  not 
require  obedience,  it  required  this  before  it  was  broken  ;  but 
after  it  was  broken  it  required  death."  Because  the  law  was 
broken  it  required  death,  is  not  disputed ;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  because  it  was  broken  it  no  longer  required  obedi- 
ence. Disobedience  in  one  instance  never  releases  from 
duty.  I  appeal  to  common  life.  Does  one  offence  against 
the  laws  of  the  land,  release  the  offender  from  the  obligation 
to  future  obedience  ?  Or,  did  you  ever  hear  of  a  legislative 
power  abrogating  a  just  and  righteous  law,  because  it  was 
transgressed  ?  Never.  How  much  more  preposterous  is 
it,  that  God  should  repeal  or  annul  His  law  to  save  man 
from  the  penalty. 

This  is  not  God's  method  of  saving  sinners.  He  gave  His 
Son,  not  to  redeem  us  from  under  the  claims  of  the  law, 
thereby  releasing  us  from  the  obligation  to  obey  it,  but  as 
Paul  expressly  states,  to  redeem  us  from  under  its  penalty ; 
not  to  redeem  us  from  the  obligation  of  holiness,  but  from 
the  law's  dreadful  curse — giving  us  another  opportunity  to 
obey  it,  by  converting  us  and  making  us  holy,  as  it  is  only 
adapted  to  holy  creatures,  and  giving  us  grace  to  keep  it. 
Hence,  having  broken  it,  and  utterly  disqualified  to  keep  it, 
therefore  cannot  be  justified  as  sinners  by  it,  we  are  first 
justified  by  faith  in  order  to  conversion,  as  Abraham  was  in 
Mesopotamia  ;  and  afterwards  justified  in  order  to  judgment 
by  our  works,  as  Abraham  was  justified  when  he  offered  up 
his  son  Isaac  upon  the  altar.  Such  are  the  relations  of  the 
Gospel  and  the  law— the  one  not  substituting  the  other. 
4* 


82  SERMONS. 

2.  Mr.  Fletcher  says,  the  law,  which  he  styles  throughout 
his  writings  as  "  Adamic  law,"  cannot  be  violated  without 
certainly  bringing  the  violator  under  its  curse,  therefore  we 
are  not  under  it,  but  under  the  law  of  Christ,  the  evangelical 
law  of  liberty,  by  which  he  says  in  another  place  we  will  be 
judged.  But  what  is  fatal  to  his  assigned  reason  is  that  the 
law  cannot  be  violated  now  without  bringing  the  violator 
under  its  curse,  as  surely  and  in  the  same  degree  it  brought 
Adam,  and  that  though  Adam  did  violate  it  he  was  not 
brought  under  its  final  curse,  and  away  goes  his  conclusion. 
That  the  law  given  to  Adam  it  still  binding,  requiring  holi- 
ness of  heart  and  life,  and  threatening  sinners  because  they 
are  wicked,  is  clear  from  its  origin,  nature,  immutability, 
requirements,  unpardoning  character,  universality,  and  also 
from  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

Read  Romans,  that  profound  disquisition  upon  law,  and 
exposition  of  the  gospel,  where  they  are  presented  in  their 
distinct  yet  relative  properties  and  offices.  "  For  until  the  law, 
sin  was  in  the  world  ;  but  sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is 
no  law.  Nevertheless  death  reigned  from  Adam  to  Moses, 
even  over  them  that  had  not  sinned  after  the  similitude  of 
Adam's  transgression,  who  is  the  figure  of  him  that  was  to 
come."  Dr.  Taylor  in  his  comment  on  the  last  verse,  which 
is  quoted  and  endorsed  by  Dr.  Clarke,  says  :  ist.  "  Sin  was  in 
the  world  from  Adam  to  Moses.  2d.  Law  was  not  in  the 
world  from  Adam  to  Moses,  during  the  space  of  about  two 
thousand  five  hundred  years ;  for  after  Adam's  transgression 
that  law  was  abrogated." 

The  comment  is  self-contradictory  :  "  ist.  Sin  was  in  the 
world  from  Adam  to  Moses.  2d.  Law  was  not  in  the  world 
from  Adam  to  Moses."  How  sin  can  exist  for  two  thousand 
five  hundred  years  from  Adam  to  Moses,  without  law  I  can- 
not divine  ;  for  Paul  says  expressly,  "  For  where  no  law  is, 
there  is   no   transgression."     And   again   he  says,   "  I    had 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL— DISCOURSE  II.        83 

not  known  sin  but  by  the  law,"  and  he  enters  into  a  long 
argument  to  prove  that  sin  owes  its  existence  to  the  law. 
The  conclusion  is  the  precise  converse  of  Mr.  Taylor's 
proposition  ;  law  was  in  the  world  between  Adam  and 
Moses  and  law  after  man's  trangression  was  not  abrogated. 
The  c  jmment  contradicts  the  preceding  verse,  yea  one  o( 
the  verses  of  which  it  professes  to  be  the  exposition,  "  P'oi 
until  the  law  (/.  e..  the  law  given  through  Moses)  sin  was  in 
the  world  ;  but  sin  is  not  imputed  when  there  is  no  law." 
The  conclusion  is  irresistible  :  if  sin  was  in  the  world  before 
the  law  that  was  given  through  Moses,  and  cannot  be  im- 
puted without  law,  there  was  a  law  existing  as  obligatory, 
prior  to  the  one  given  on  Mount  Sinai. 

The  very  fact  that  the  Bible  makes  distinctions  in  moral 
character  before  the  days  of  Moses,  pronouncing  threaten- 
ings  upon  the  wicked,  and  offering  rewards  to  the  good,  is 
demonstrative  that  in  those  days  men  were  under  law.  for 
the  moral  character  of  all  actions  is  determined  by  law. 
If  they  were  under  a  law  we  must  be  under  the  same  law. 
Their  circumstances  and  ours  were  similar,  they  were  fallen, 
so  are  we ;  indeed,  if  they  were  not  fallen,  and  we  were,  it 
would  make  no  difference  ;  there  can  be  no  possible  reason 
discovered  why  they  should  be  under  one  law,  and  we  under 
another.  If  the  pre-mosaic  and  the  post-mosaic  worlds  were 
under  different  laws,  everything  being  the  same  between 
them,  one  law  must  have  something  that  the  other  has  not, 
or  there  is  no  distinction.  If  one  has  something  the  other 
has  not,  one  of  them  is  imperfect, — and  an  imperfect  law  in  a 
perfect  government,  ruled  by  a  perfect  Governor,  a  perfect 
Law-giver,  is  too  absurd  to  be  entertained  for  a  moment.  What 
was  the  law  of  the  pre-mosaic  ages  ?  The  moral  law  given 
to  Adam  or  none.  What  then  would  be  the  law  under  which 
we  are  placed  ?  The  moral  law  given  to  Adam  or  none. 
Before    Moses  men's  bodies  died,  and  the  death  of  man's 


84  SERMONS. 

body  is  a  philosophic  consequence  of  the  penalty  of  moral 
law — the  law  given  to  Adam.  Our  bodies  die — the  same 
penalty.  The  infliction  of  bodily  death  upon  us  is  a  stand- 
ing monument  that  the  moral  law,  the  law  given  to  Adam, 
is  not  abrogated,  or  that  we  are  not  released  from  its 
claims. 

God  made  man  physically  immortal.  How  immortality 
of  the  body  was  maintained,  I  do  not  know.  His  body 
would  not  have  died  had  he  not  sinned  ;  his  probation  would 
have  ended,  and  ended  finally — a  repetition,  or  succession 
of  probations,  cannot  be  admitted  ;  man  would,  therefore, 
have  ended  his  probation  without  his  body  dying.  What 
then  would  have  become  of  him,  I  do  not  know.  Probably 
his  body  would  have  been  changed,  translated,  and  glorified, 
like  Enoch's  body,  and  Elijah's  body.  But  man  having 
sinned,  death  entered  the  world.  Death  is  an  effect,  not  a 
thing  or  being.  But  it  is  personified  by  Paul  and. John,  and 
I  but  follow  their  example  when  I  say  Death  is  a  king.  He 
is  a  king — a  grim  and  savage  king — and  he  has  more  subjects 
than  all  other  kings,  and  of  all  kings  he  is  king,  and  of  all 
kingdoms  the  king. 

.  Death  is  of  hellish  origin — sired  by  Satan  and  his  mother 
sin,  and  born  in  hell.  Scarcely  was  he  born,  with  the  im- 
perishable birthright  of  hell's  first-born,  till  he  sprang  and 
grew  into  a  redoubtable  giant — the  perfect  shade  of  every 
evil  concreted,  black  as  the  scowl  of  perdition — of  dire  shape 
ever  altering  into  more  hideous  and  monstrous  forms,  arid 
boned,  fleshless,  cadaverous,  robed  in  horror,  wearing  a 
dreadful  diadem  upon  his  ghastly  brow,  and  wielding  a  fear- 
ful dart  in  his  dry  and  rattling  fingers — a  dart  ever  striking 
wherever  aimed,  and  ever  fatal  wherever  it  struck. 

The  gate  of  Eden  has  scarcely  closed  upon  the  recreant 
pair,  till  there  he  stood  among  the  fiery  guards,  outside  the 
gate,  roaring  with  anticipated  and  brutal  joy,  like  a  colossal 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL— DISCOURSE  II.        85 

ogre  anthropophagous,  with  jaws  distended  and  whetted  teeth 
to  devour  the  race,  and  cram  all  earth's  millions  into  his 
capacious  and  hungry  maw,  and  send  their  souls,  disem 
bodied,  to  rove  over  other  worlds. 

With  him  he  had  a  numerous  retinue — executors  of  hi? 
will.  The  red-winged  lightning  stood  with  fiery  shafts  and 
sulphurous  bolts,  ready  to  stretch  the  plow-boy  cold  and 
dead  in  the  half-plowed  furrow,  drenched  and  muddy  with 
the  descending  rain  ;  or  to  splinter  church  steeples,  and 
tumbling  let  them  bury  congregations  in  their  ruins.  Mala- 
rias from  a  thousand  bogs,  tangled  brushwoods,  humid  plains, 
and  river  banks,  wafted  with  poison  on  their  wings,  and 
stood  ready  at  his  bidding  to  depopulate  Emporiums.  Hur- 
ricanes charioted,  held  in  their  boisterous  steeds,  and  offered 
to  drive  over  the  traveller,  and  bury  him  beneath  fragmen- 
tary limbs  and  uprooted  trees — levelling  cities  to  the  grounc 
and  crushing  their  inhabitants  with  the  rubbish.  Simoons 
perched  upon  his  hand,  and  unfolding  their  pinions,  prom- 
ised to  go  and  smother  caravans  with  their  torrid  breath, 
and  entomb  them  under  mountains  of  sand,  or  scatter  their 
parched  bones  over  the  face  of  the  desert,  unrited  and  un- 
sepultured. 

Earthquakes  growled  below,  and  promised  to  crack  the 
sides  of  the  mighty  globe,  and  shake  walls,  towers,  and 
steeples  upon  crowded  streets,  to  upheave  the  mountains 
and  plant  their  rocky  bottoms  upon  populous  plains,  and 
open  wide  their  horrid  mouths  toothed  with  granite,  and 
swallow  millions,  grinding  them  in  its  jaws  to  dust.  Incen- 
diary fire  declared  its  readiness  to  creep  upon  the  sleeper, 
and  ere  he  awake  consume  him,  and  lay  the  calcined  bones 
at  the  feet  of  his  hell-born  master.  A  misty  cloud  declared 
that  its  mother  ocean  had  a  thousand  rocks,  ready  sharpened 
to  split  the  keels  of  navies,  and  her  beds  of  Algae,  carpeting 
all  her   watery   caves,  were  ready   for   the   repose   of  the 


86  SERMONS. 

drowned  mariner.  War  drew  his  sword  and  took  an  awful 
oath  that  he  would  crimson  every  river  and  redden  every 
land  with  human  gore,  and  that  he  would  pile  his  mutilated 
thousands  upon  Death's  black  altars  as  a  daily  offering,  and 
that  nations  should  not  be  born,  live,  or  die,  without  him 
rioting  in  horrid  butchery — and  declared  his  willingness  to 
begin  whenever  two  were  born. 

Lean-faced,  villainous  famine  stood  ready  to  steal  her 
children's  bread,  and  stack  their  withered  corpses  upon 
domestic  altars  in  sight  of  starving  parentage.  Intemper- 
ance with  his  car  freighted  with  savory  dishes  and  sparkling 
viands,  standing  close  by  him,  proposed  to  stop  at  life's  sta- 
tions and  take  on  the  drunkard,  the  glutton,  the  feaster, 
taking  more  from  each  household  than  the  Angel  of  Death 
spared  in  his  flight  over  Egypt ;  then  drive  his  crowded  train 
down  the  cursed  throat  of  the  infernal  cannibal — like  trains 
now  dashing  into  the  tunnelled  mountain  sides,  but  unlike 
them  to  emerge  no  more  from  the  darkness.  Around  him 
stood  diseases,  Protean-shaped,  and  numberless  in  name — 
endemics,  epidemics,  pandemics,  pestilences — all,  too  anx- 
ious to  begin  their  dreadful  work.  Time  standing  with  drawn 
scythe,  ready  to  glean  after  lest  one  poor  wretch  escape. 

Commanding  such  resources  Death  has  commenced  his 
carnage,  and  roaring  in  high  carnival  down  the  stream  of 
human  generations,  from  Abel  till  now,  he  has  devoured  all 
mankind,  save  two,  and  has  hollowed  out  the  globe  and 
crammed  it  with  the  fragments  of  his  ghastly  feast.  And  still 
wide  wasting,  none  he  spares.  Where  are  the  antedilu- 
vians ?  Where  are  the  patriarchs  ?  Where  are  the  builders 
of  Babel's  presumptuous  tower  ?  Where  are  the  prophets  ? 
Where  are  Rome's  Caesars,  and  Rome's  legions?  Egypt's 
thousands,  and  Babylon's  millions  ?  Where  are  the  apos- 
tles ?  O,  behold  him  !  rushing  over  hill  and  vale,  over 
islands  and  continents,  over  land  and  sea,  from  pole  to  pole, 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL — DISCOURSE  II.        87 

girdling  the  world  with  monuments,  his  enormous  wings  of 
laminated  darkness  roaring  in  the  affrighted  air  like  ten 
thousand  hurricanes,  and  raining  pestilence  from  their  quiv- 
ering plumes,  his  deadly  breath  withering  the  flowers  of 
hope  and  blasting  the  glory  of  manhood,  his  projecting  sting 
and  flaming  darts  emptying  cradles,  thrones  and  pulpits — 
the  whole  earth  ringing  below  him  with  the  din  of  hammers, 
the  clank  of  spades,  the  rattling  of  funeral  trains — earth 
burying  her  dead.  O,  behold  him  !  as  he  cleaves  the  firma- 
ment and  strides  the  world,  his  horrid  train  of  ghastly  myrmi- 
dons hovering  in  his  track,  his  harbingers  running  before — 
the  earth  wet  with  tears  and  sabled  grief  weeping  at  our  fire- 
sides. Rachel  crying  for  her  children  because  they  were 
not.  But  thank  God  his  reign  will  soon  be  over,  and  that  he 
has  a  conqueror.  But  O,  his  harbingers  are  here  and  we  are 
going.  The  existence  of  death  and  tombs  while  under  the 
gospel  is  evidence  that  the  law  is  not  made  void  by  faith. 


SERMON  VIII. 

THE   LAW   AND  THE    GOSPEL. — (DISCOURSE  III.) 

*'  Do  we  then  make  void  the  law  through  faith  ?  God  forbid  ;  yea,  we 
establish  the  law." — Rom.  iii.  31. 

IN  my  first  discourse  I  showed  you  the  origin,  nature,  and 
immutability  of  the  moral  law.  In  the  second  dis- 
course I  showed  you  that  law  was  unpardoning  and  universal 
— that  Adam,  Moses,  and  us,  as  well  as  angels,  were  all  under 
the  same  law,  that  the  Gospel  did  not  take  law's  place,  that 
it  was  not  made  void  through  faith.  I  will  resume  the  Scrip- 
tural testimony  where  I  left  off. 

"  There  is,  therefore,  now  no  condemnation  to  them  that 
are  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh,  but  after 
the  spirit.  For  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus 
hath  made  me  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death.  For  what 
the  law  could  not  do,  in  that  it  was  weak  through  the  flesh, 
God,  sending  his  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and 
for  sin,  condemned  sin  in  the  flesh  ;  that  the  righteousness 
of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us,  who  walk  not  after  the 
flesh,  but  after  the  spirit." — Rom.  viii.  1-4.  The  doctrine 
of  Paul  here  is,  that  the  law  being  weak  through  the  flesh — 
/'.  e.,  the  flesh  being  contrary  to  the  perfection  required  by 
the  law,  in  subjecting  the  sinner  to  the  awful  penalties  of 
the  law,  the  law  could  not  pardon,  sanctify,  and  save  him. 
And  for  this  reason  Christ  came  to  condemn  sin  in  the  flesh, 
to  destroy  that  through  which  the  law  inflicted  its  penalty. 
"  That  the  righteousness  of  the  law  might  be  fulfilled  in  us." 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL— DISCOURSE  III.      89 

It  seems  to  be  the  sole  purpose   of  the  gospel  to  establish 
the  law.     Does  this  look  like  abrogation  ? 

Again,  Paul  in  the  third  chapter  of  Romans,  after  proving 
that  a  sinner  cannot  be  justified  by  the  law,  for  fear  that 
some  one  might  be  led  by  this  fact  to  believe  that  the  gospel 
supplanted  the  law,  and  it  seems  there  are  many,  he  winds  # 
up  his  maste-ly  argument  in  this  chapter,  in  the  words  of  the 
text  :  "  Do  we  then  make  void  the  law  through  faith  ?  God 
forbid:, yea,  we  establish  the  law."  Of  what  law  was  he 
speaking  ?  The  great  moral  law  ;  because  he  says  in  the 
preceding  chapter  that  it  was  given  to  both  Jews  and  Gen- 
tiles ;  a  peculiar  edition  of  it  given  to  the  Jews  by  revela- 
tion adapted  to  their  commonwealth  ;  and  given  to  the  Gen- 
tiles by  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost  ;  and  furthermore 
we  know  it  was  the  great  moral  law,  and  not  the  law  given 
by  Moses,  for  it  included  both  Jews  and  Gentiles,  teaches 
Paul,  under  it  as  sinners.  If  the  law  of  which  he  is  speak 
ing  extends  to  both  Jews  and  Gentiles,  and  condemns  them 
both  as  sinners,  it  could  not  have  been  the  law  given  by 
Moses,  and  if  it  be  not  this  law,  it  must  be  the  moral  law. 

Then  the  moral  law,  the  law  given  to  Adam,  the  law  of 
the  universe,  is  not  made  void  through  faith,  but  established 
— ratified,  supported,  unalterably  and  permanently  confirmed, 
as  the  rule  of  life  and  judgment — because  faith  and  not 
obedience  is  the  condition.  Here  we  have  the  office  of  the 
gospel,  by  which  we  mean  all  the  remedial  principles  and 
instrumentalities  of  the  system  of  grace,  as  distinguished 
from  law — and  nothing  more — distinctly  and  relatively  con- 
sidered with  reference  to  law.  The  moral  law,  from  its 
nature  required  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth — all 
actuated  and  working  in  obedience  to  that  which  constituted 
its  essence — actuated  and  working  by  love.  Man  transgressed 
this  law  and  fell  under  its  curse.  The  law  could  not  forgive 
him  ;  God  could  not  forgive  him  ;  the  law  could  not  be  ab- 


$0  SERMONS. 

rogated — it  was  still  binding ;  man  could  not  be  released 
from  its  claims,  for  he  sustained  the  same  relations  to  God 
after  the  fall  as  before ;  he  could  not  recall  his  sin  ;  he  could 
not  balance  it  by  future  obedience.  The  gospel  steps  in  as 
a  remedy,  meeting  all  these  conditions,  and  establishing  the 
law. 

To  suppose  man  even  pardoned,  the  law  required  perfect 
obedience  as  the  ground  of  continued  justification,  and  man 
became  incapable  of  rendering  that.  Every  capability  and 
power  of  man's  being  might  shine  in  the  meridian  glories 
of  intellectual  and  moral  truth,  but  to  attempt  obedience 
with  nothing  more  than  the  pardon  of  the  past,  would  be  a 
cold,  sad,  arduous  work,  oppressive  and  slavish  in  Paul's 
highest  sense  of  bondage.  Man  must  have  an  inspiration, 
a  spontaneous  impulse  of  power — he  must  have  life.  He 
must  be  free,  and  act  from  the  will,  the  point  of  liberty. 
The  law  to  him  must  be  il  a  law  of  liberty,"  not  by  any 
change  in  the  law,  but  by  a  change  in  himself,  and  this  is  all 
that  the  apostle  ever  meant  by  a  law  of  liberty,  he  never 
meant  by  the  expression  a  milder  law  of  the  gospel. 

Man  must  have  the  inspiration  of  love — love  the  essence 
of  God's  moral  nature,  the  essence  of  God's  moral  law, 
copied  and  ingrained  into  his  own  nature  as  the  ruling  and 
actuating  principle  of  his  obedient  life.  Men  can  accom- 
plish nothing  well  without  an  inspiration.  The  essence  of 
God's  nature  and  the  essence  of  His  law  must  drive  the 
whole  machinery  of  redemption — love.  The  law  required 
what  constituted  its  nature,  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and 
truth.  It  demanded  that  the  principle  actuating  the  con- 
formity required  should  be  its  essence.  As  love  is  essential 
to  the  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth  of  God,  and  to 
holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth  of  God's  law,  so  it  is 
essential  to  the  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth  of  the 
creature. 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL — DISCOURSE  III.      91 

Love  is  the  essence  of  the  moral  nature  of  God,  the  es- 
sence of  His  law,  hence  enmity  to  Him  is  the  essence  of 
sin,  the  opposite  of  His  nature,  and  the  transgression  of 
His  law.  Love  being  the  essence  of  the  moral  nature  of 
the  Governor,  and  His  law  being  a  transcript  of  that  nature, 
it  required  that  love  should  be  the  essence  of  the  moral 
nature  of  all  His  subjects.  Love  being  the  essence  of  man's 
moral  nature,  preserved  there  by  constant  communication 
with  the  moral  nature  of  God,  through  the  law  His  agent 
and  transcript,  is  the  motive  power  of  obedience  ;  and  a 
cheerful  conformity  to  all  the  features  of  that  law,  copied 
from  the  Divine  character,  is  holiness  ;  hence  love  is  the  ful- 
filling of  the  law.  Love  is  the  essence,  and  holiness  is  the 
development  of  the  character  of  an  unfallen  creature,  shel- 
tering himself  by  loving  obedience  under  the  protective  aegis 
of  a  righteous  law. 

Love  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  law,  and  holiness  its  end; 
but  man  fell  and  lost  both.  Now  the  gospel  as  a  remedial 
agent,  by  conversion  removes  enmity  from  man's  heart,  and 
implants  love,  the  principle  of  obedience,  and  places  him 
immediately  under  law  that  he  might  be  holy,  in  fact,  giving 
him  supernatural  powers  to  keep  it,  and  a  sacrifice  of  suffi- 
cient merit  to  atone  for  all  his  delinquencies  and  errors. 
This  is  the  whole  work  and  office  of  the  Gospel  in  minia- 
ture. Love  is  the  essence  of  God,  the  essence  of  His  law, 
the  essence  of  the  Gospel.  Holiness  is  the  totality  of  God's 
moral  nature,  the  end  of  His  law,  the  end  of  the  Gospel. 
The  law  possesses  love  and  holiness,  considered  relatively 
with  the  Gospel,  primarily  :  the  gospel  possesses  them  reme- 
dially.  /  To  make  a  man  obey  the  law  you  must  make  him  // 
love  it,  and  Religion  is  love ;  and  to  make  him  holy  the 
Gospel  converts  him  and  places  him  entirely  under  law,  sup- 
plying him  with  strength,  and  atoning  for  his  defects  all  the 
while,  i  Do  you  not  see  that  law — the  original  law — is  not 


92  SERMONS. 

made  void  by  faith,  the  condition  of  pardon  in  the  gospel — 
not  made  void  by  the  gospel  ? 

The  very  existence  of  the  atonement  is  an  evidence  of 
the  continued  authority  of  the  law.  The  Gospel  being  a 
plan  to  meet  in  certain  and  different  senses,  the  preceptive 
and  penal  claims  of  the  law,  supposes  the  law's  continued 
existence.  Indeed,  if  the  law  is  not  in  full  authority,  we 
have  no  use  for  the  gospel.  The  very  idea  of  pardon  shows 
the  existing  obligation  of  law.  To  establish  the  law  the 
whole  machinery  of  redemption  was  put  in  motion.  To 
establish  the  law  as  well  as  to  save  the  offender,  Jesus  died. 
The  Gospel  is  not  law.  The  law  commands,  the  law 
threatens,  the  law  curses ;  the  gospel  invites,  the  gospel 
promises,  the  gospel  blesses.  Gospel  means  "  good  news," 
and  it  is  contrary  to  the  idea  of  good  news  that  it  should  be 
condemnatory.  It  is  a  perpetually  applying  remedy,  com- 
mensurate with  all  our  sins.  Every  hour  in  virtue  for  us 
the  Savior  dies  : 

41  Thy  offering  still  continues  new  ; 
Thy  vesture  keeps  its  bloody  hue." 

"  Every  moment,  Lord,  I  need  the  merit  of  thy  blood." 

No  necessity  for  removing  the  law  with  such  a  remedy. 

This  view  sustains  the  authority  and   majesty  of  the  law, 
and  imparts  an  infinite  grandeur  to  the  gospel.     An  immu- 
table and  eternal  law — a  commensurate  remedy.   /The  law 
is  as  high  as  heaven — the  gospel  is  as  high  as  heaven.     The 
demands  of  the  law  are  infinite — the  remedy  of  the  gospel 
is  infinite.     The  law  is  the  transcript  of  the  nature  of  God —  ) 
so  is  the  gospel.     Both  magnificent  pictures,  the  first  of  in- 
exorable holiness,    the    second   of  holiness   tempered   with  \ 
mercy.     The  first  is  the  front  of  the  storm  with  its  lightnings,    I 
the  second  is  the  rear  of  the  storm  with  its  beautiful  rainbow. 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL— DISCOURSE  III.      93 

I  will  answer  some  objections.  "  Ye  are  not  under  the 
law,  but  under  grace/'  Law  and  grace  are  discussed  in  this 
chapter,  as  distinguished  from  each  other  and  independent 
of  the  relations  they  sustain  to  each  other.  The  meaning 
then  is,  that  you  are  not  under  inexorable  and  unforgiving 
law,  without  helping  and  pardoning  grace.  "  Ye  also  are 
become  dead  to  the  law  by  the  body  of  Christ."  This  means 
not  the  moral  law,  but  the  Levitical  law,  its  rites,  ceremonies, 
and  curse.  There  is  a  parallel  verse  in  the  same  chapter, 
also  in  Galatians.  That  it  is  the  Levitical  that  is  meant,  is 
clear  from  the  fact  that  it  is  addressed  peculiarly  to  the  Jews  : 
"  I  speak  to  them  that  know  the  law."  If  Paul  means  more 
than  this,  he  must  mean  that  Christians  cannot  sin  ;  for  if  sin 
is  the  transgression  of  the  law,  and  the  law  is  dead  to  them, 
the  commission  of  sin  by  them  would  be  impossible. 

"  Christ  is  the  end  of  the  Jaw,  for  righteousness  to  every 
one  that  believeth."  Paul  does  not  mean  here  that  the  law 
was  abrogated,  or  that  men  were  released  from  its  claims,  but 
that  they  were  justified  as  sinners  by  the  law.  Read  the  pre- 
ceding verse  :  "  They  being  ignorant  of  God's  righteousness, 
and  going  about  to  establish  their  own"  righteousness,  have 
not  submitted  themselves  unto  the  righteousness  of  God." 
Read  the  whole  chapter  :  Paul  teaches  we  are  not  under  law 
as  a  condition  of  justification,  which  was  a  prevalent  error  in 
those  days.  But  he  nowhere  teaches  that  we  are  not  under 
law  as  a  standard  of  duty.  The  two  justifications  men  have 
not  understood,  but  confounded,  some  turning  to  Antino- 
mians,  some  to  legalists. 

"  For  I  through  the  law,  am  dead  to  the  law,  that  I  might 
live  unto  God."  Dr.  Clarke  in  his  comment  on  this  verse, 
says,  meaning  the  moral  law,  that  the  "  law  itself  is  assigned 
to  death  ;  and  another,  the  gospel  of  Christ,  is  substituted  in 
its  stead."  But  Paul  has  no  reference  to  the  moral  law  what- 
ever.    Throughout  the  argumentative  part  of  this  epistle,  he 


94  SERMONS. 

is  trying  to  contravene  the  efforts  of  Judaizing  teachers  to 
fetter  the  Galatian  Christians  with  the  slavish  rites  of  the 
Jewish  ritualistic  law.  The  verse  quoted  is  written  in  con- 
nection with  a  controversy  with  Peter  on  this  subject,  where 
Paul  shows  the  utter  inutility  of  Jewish  ritualistic  law  as  it 
could  not  justify  a  sinner.  See  several  of  the  preceding 
verses  :  also  the  twenty-first  verse  :  "  If  righteousness  come 
by  the  law,  then  Christ  is  dead  in  vain."  In  the  verse  imme- 
diately preceding,  he  says,  "  If  I  build  again  the  things 
which  I  destroyed,  I  make  myself  a  transgressor."  Build 
what?  The  things  which  he  destroyed.  Did  he  destroy  the 
moral  law  ?  Preposterous  !  No,  but  the  ritual  laws  of  the 
Jews,  in  that  he  taught  that  it  was  no  longer  binding.  "  I 
through  the  law  am  dead  to  the  law."  Was  the  moral  law 
abrogated  through  itself?  Absurd.  Yet  this  was  true  of  the 
ritualistic  and  ceremonial  law,  for  it  being  typical,  Paul 
through  its  types  was  brought  to  Christ  the  great  antitype, 
the  death  of  the  ritualistic  and  ceremonial  law. 

The  law  about  which  Paul  wrote,  throughout  the  epistle 
to  the  Galatians,  was  one,  so  he  says,  which  was  given  four 
hundred  and  thirty  years  after  the  making  of  the  covenant 
with  Abraham,  and  as  a  matter  of  course  could  not  be  the 
moral  law,  but  the  Levitical  law.  And  this  is  the  law  which 
Paul  calls  a  "  schoolmaster,"  which  with  its  rites,  ceremonies, 
and  sacrifices  brought  the  worshipper  co  Christ.  To  call 
the  moral  law  of  God's  universe  a  schoolmaster  is  derogative 
of  its  character  as  moral,  and  giving  it  a  servile  work  decid- 
edly improper.  The  law  of  God,  given  to  angels,  given  to 
Adam,  is  binding  upon  us.  The  perfection,  therefore,  it  re- 
quires of  us,  call  it  Adamic,  Christian,  or  what  you  will,  is 
the  perfection  of  itself,  the  perfection  of  its  author — Perfect 
Holiness,  Perfect  Justice,  Perfect  Goodness,  Perfect  Truth, 
Perfect  Love.  God's  perfection  is  equal  to  the  capabilities 
of  His  being.     Ours  must  be  equal  to  the  capabilities  of  our 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL— DISCOURSE  III.      95 

being.'    "Sin  not  at  all"  is  its  language,  and  we  have  the 
power  under  grace  to  obey  it.  j 

Dr.  Peck  says  :  "  The  difference  between  the  original  law 
of  perfect  purity,  and  the  law  of  love,  as  incorporated  in  the 
gospel,  is  '  one  is  the  expression  of  the  Divine  will  concern- 
ing beings  perfectly  pure,  in  the  full  possession  of  all  their 
original  capabilities ;  but  the  other  is  an  expression  of  the 
Divine  will  concerning  fallen  beings  restored  to  a  state  of 
probation  by  the  mediation  of  Christ.  Each  alike  requires 
the  exercise  of  the  capabilities  of  the  subjects;  but  the  sub- 
jects being  in  different  circumstances,  and  differing  in  the 
amount  of  their  capabilities,  the  standard  of  perfection  is, 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  varied.'  "  However  plausible 
this  view  may  appear  to  the  believers  in  what  is  termed 
11  Christian  perfection,"  it  is  incorrect,  because  it  reduces  the 
standard  of  Christian  perfection  below  law,  or  makes  law 
descend  in  the  same  ratio  of  the  difference  between  a  fallen 
and  unfallen  being — supposing  there  is  such  a  difference. 
Such  a  doctrine  is  preposterous.  Either  horn  of  the  dilemma 
leads  into  insuperable  difficulties. 

To  say  that  our  capabilities  for  obedience  are  not  as 
strong  as  Adam's  were,  or  that  the  circumstances  surround- 
ing us  are  not  as  favorable  as  those  which  surrounded  him, 
is  to  say  that  the  grace  of  the  gospel  is  not  equal  to  the  exi- 
gencies of  our  condition  ;  it  is  to  deny  the  infinitude  of  the 
merits  of  Christ,  as  commensurate  with  the  infinite  guilt 
and  awful  consequences  of  man's  transgressions.  If  his 
premises  are  wrong,  his  conclusion  is :  that  "  the  standard 
of  perfection  is,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  varied."  To 
vary  the  standard  of  perfection  is  a  reproach  upon  law. 
To  vary  it  when  there  is  a  remedy,  is  a  reproach  upon  that 
remedy.     It  is  an  insult  to  both  law  and  gospel. 

By  this   law  we  shall  be  judged.     All  we  have  thought,   .. 
'(  said,  or  done,  shall  be   tried  in  the  light  of  its  perfection. 


96  SERMONS. 

"  If  the  right  sous  scarcely  be  saved,  where  shall  the  ungodly 
and  the  sinner  appear  ? "  That  the  heathen  are  to  be 
judged  by  the  law  of  conscience,  the  Jews  by  the  law  of 
Moses,  and  Christians  by  the  gospel,  as  distinguished  from 
the  one  law  given  to  Adam,  is  without  warrant  from  the  Word 
of  God  :  though  this  is  the  doctrine  of  our  text-books. 
The  passage  of  Scripture  in  Romans  (ii.  12,  14)  quoted  to 
prove  the  first  distinction  : — "  For  as  many  as  have  sinned 
without  law,  shall  also  perish  without  law.  For  when  the 
Gentiles  which  have  not  the  law,  do  by  nature  the  things 
contained  in  the  law,  these  having  not  the  law,  are  law  unto 
themselves,"  only  teaches  that  men  are  judged  by  the  law,  so 
far  only  as  they  have  means  or  opportunity  for  knowing  it. 

The  passage  of  Scripture  in  Romans  (ii.  12),  quoted  to 
prove  the  second  distinction  :  "  As  many  as  have  sinned  in 
the  law,  shall  be  judged  by  the  law,"  only  teaches  that  men, 
whether  Jews  or  Gentiles,  who  had  opportunity  for  know- 
ing the  law  are  judged  strictly  by  it.  The  passage  of  Scrip- 
ture in  James  (ii.  12),  quoted  to  prove  the  third  distinc- 
tion, is  this  :  "  So  speak  ye,  and  so  do,  as  they  that  shall 
be  judged  by  the  law  of  liberty."  I  have  already  defined 
what  is  meant  by  "  liberty  "  in  this  connection.  David 
says,  u  I  will  walk  at  liberty,  for  I  seek  thy  precepts,"  and 
the  privilege  of  searching  of  the  law  and  keeping  it,  is  here 
called  "liberty."  "  The  law  of  liberty  "  as  used  by  James  is 
not  the  gospel.  He  explains  himself:  "  If  ye  fulfill  the  royal 
law  according  to  the  Scriptures,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor 
as  thyself,  ye  do  well ;  but  if  ye  have  respect  to  persons,  ye 
commit  sin,  and  are  convinced  of  the  law  as  transgressors. 
For  whosoever  keeps  the  whole  law,  and  yet  offend  in  one 
point,  he  is  guilty  of  all.  For  he  that  said,  Do  not  commit 
adultery  ;  said  also,  Do  not  kill.  Now,  if  thou  commit  no 
adultery,  yet  if  thou  kill,  thou  art  become  a  transgressor  of 
the  law.     So  speak  ye,  and  so  do,  as  they  that  shall  be 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL— DISCOURSE  III.      97 

judged  by  the  law  of  liberty."  The  decalogue  itself,  lie  calls 
"  the  law  of  liberty."  We  will  not  be  judged  by  the  gospel, 
but  by  the  law — a  law  which  existed  before  the  gospel,  and 
will  live  when  the  gospel  dispensation  is  over.  The  gospel 
will  appear  in  the  judgment  for  us  or  against  us  as  we  have 
used  or  abused  it. 

There  is  a  great  day  of  judgment  coming  —  not  a  literal 
day,  but  I  have  nothing  now  to  do  with  Biblical  criticisms 
and  exegesis.  The  circumstances  and  events  of  the  day  are 
symbolically  and  parabolically  described  in  the  Bible.  I 
may  some  day  endeavor  to  arrive  at  the  meaning  of  those 
symbols,  according  to  Scriptural  rules  of  interpretation,  as 
far  as  God  is  pleased  for  man  to  understand  them  ;  but  let 
us  accept  the  symbols  and  paraboles  as  literal,  and  dwell  upon 
them  a  few  moments  as  such,  remembering  though  we  may 
err  therefore  in  the  description,  we  do  not  err  as  to  the  great 
fact  which  is  symbolized  and  parabled. 

There  is  to  be  a  period  of  General  Judgment.  Suppose 
this  the  time  of  its  announcement.  It  is  Sabbath  evening. 
You  are  seated  here  quietly  in  the  church  (some  are  standing 
near  the  door).  Our  little  ones  are  at  home.  The  gas  is 
burning  brightly  in  our  parlors,  and  shortly  the  servants  ex- 
pect in  obedience  to  the  bell  to  open  the  doors  and  let  us  in. 
Our  houses  of  business  are  closed,  but  few  persons  are  on 
the  streets,  and  soon  the  watchman  expects  to  be  on  his 
nightly  round.  The  front  doors  and  windows  of  our  liquor 
saloons  are  closed — for  it  is  the  Sabbath — but  a  closer  in- 
spection will  reveal  the  light  gleaming  obliquely  through  the 
window  shutters,  and  angularly  striking  the  pavement — 
Why  ?  The  back  doors  are  open,  or  ajar,  and  now  debauchees 
are  passing  and  repassing  stealthily  along  the  alleys. 

The  sick  man  across  the  street  is  turning  himself  in  the 
bed  from  uneasy  slumber  ;  some  of  our  citizens  are  at  home 
reading  the  news  ;  some  are  in  back  rooms  pouring  over 
5 


98  SERMONS. 

their  ledgers  ;  some  are  asleep  ;  the  mother  in  Israel,  unable 
to  be  here  to-night,  has  just  dropped  upon  her  knees  by  the 
bedside  to  thank  God  for  another  Sabbath,  and  to  say  a 
prayer  and  drop  a  tear  for  her  wicked  boy — while  along  the 
shadow  of  the  walls  libertines  are  creeping  to  the  brothel. 
Our  wharves  look  lonely  to-night,  and  the  river  breeze  sighs 
gently  around  the  tapering  masts  of  the  anchored  schooners, 
and  our  boats  cabled  at  their  landings  rise  and  fall  with  the 
wave  which  glitters  in  the  cold  starlight  and  murmurs  around 
their  hulls.  The  tombstones  of  our  neighboring  cemeteries, 
the  steeples  and  walls  of  our  churches,  the  dome  of  the 
distant  capitol,  look  cold  and  gray  in  the  light  of  the  Novem- 
ber moon,  and  the  old  Potomac  paved  with  silvery  sheen 
rolls  on  grandly  and  proudly  to  the  sea. 

But  hark  !  what  sound  is  that — so  unearthly,  supernatural, 
and  strange — so  far  away — yet  so  sonorous,  clear,  and  pierc- 
ing— which  makes  nature  sick,  and  makes  the  blood  creep 
cold  in  our  veins,  and  sends  a  peculiar  shiver  along  our 
nerves,  and  stops  the  breath  for  a  moment  ?  What  makes 
the  earth  growl  and  quake  so  —  and  why  are  the  graveyards 
shaking,  the  mountains  overturning,  the  graves  rending  — 
and  why  are  the  aged  persons  around  us  suddenly  growing 
youthful  ?  Trembling  and  horror-stricken  let  us  go  to 
the  door  and  see — But  ah  !  we  are  spared  the  trouble  : 
the  ground  heaving  has  split  the  church  from  foundation  to 
roof,  and  falling  apart  the  naked  sky  is  above  us.  Now  look 
up  !  See  that  angel  coming — bright  as  a  star,  his  pinions 
extended  and  shading  the  firmament,  his  beautiful  form  mir- 
rored in  the  concave  depths  of  the  ethereal  blue,  or  rather 
pictured  in  high  relief  upon  a  background  of  deepest  azure  ; 
before  whose  glory  the  blushing  and  affrighted  moon  is  run- 
ning from  its  orbit,  and  tumbling  down  the  west  to  some 
Hesperian  cave  to  hide  itself— coming  and  sounding  the 
trump  of  Judgment. 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL — DISCOURSE  III.      99 

Hear  you  the  supulchral,  uproarious  and  horrible  howlings 
of  some  hideous-throated  monster  beneath  your  feet  ?  It  is 
the  ghastly  King  of  the  dead,  man's  destroyer,  being  throttled 
and  chained  by  the  Angel  of  the  resurrection  in  his  last  for- 
tified den,  paved  with  human  bones,  japanned  with  human 
gore,  and  fetid  with  human  corruption.  Hear  you  that  deep 
and  hollow  crashing,  which  seems  to  shiver  through  the  globe  ? 
It  is  the  noise  of  Death's  falling  temples,  and  the  downfall 
of  his  empire.  But  O,  look  around  you  !  every  street,  every 
alley,  every  hill,  every  valley,  every  mountain,  every  plain,  is 
crowded — crowded — and  still  they  come.  The  very  dust 
beneath  us  is  stirring  with  life.  The  very  plants  and  trees  are 
dissolving  and  their  particles  are  appropriated  by  human 
bodies  which  take  their  places.  The  last  rose  of  summer 
melts  away  in  the  lover's  hand,  and  the  dissolved  dust  is 
claimed  by  the  rising  babe,  or  rising  and  rejuvenated  age — all 
the  dead  are  rising.  Be  still,  mother,  your  child  is  not  left 
behind.  Be  still,  old  man,  your  wife  is  coming.  Be  still, 
sorrow-stricken  orphanage,  your  parents  have  broken  their 
cerements  and  are  alive  again. 

But  see,  the  vast  crowd  is  thrown  into  mighty  commotion. 
Suddenly  millions  are  gazing  upwards,  while  millions  more 
are  trying  to  clamber  back  into  their  graves,  and  pull  the 
cold  marble  over  them  again.  But  why  such  commotion  ? 
Look  up  !  The  sky  is  parted  like  a  sundered  scroll,  the 
edges  of  both  firmamental  hemispheres  folding  over  widen- 
ing the  rent,  and  an  awful  throne  rolling  upon  fiery  wheels 
down  a  pavement  of  sunbeams  welded  and  hammered  as  solid 
as  the  streets  of  heaven,  is  coming — coming  quicker  than  an 
electric  flash,  ten  thousand  lightnings  careering  and  burning 
and  playing  before  it,  and  flanked  by  angels,  whose  extremest 
wings  fan  two  horizons,  and  followed  by  a  train  of  seraphims 
whose  rear  legions  are  still  tramping  over  the  threshold  of 
heaven.     Stars,  terrified,  darting  out  of  the  track  of  the  de- 


100  SERMONS. 

scending  throne,  and  flying  away  into  the  murky  void  ;  while 
the  sun  on  the  other  side  of  the  world  is  dazzled  by  the  dis- 
tant glory  and  veils  his  face  in  sackcloth.  Look  up !  for 
every  eye  shall  see  Him — see  Jesus — "  see  the  Son  of  Man 
coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven,  with  power  and  great  glory." 

But  amazing  !  The  vast  throng  is  thinning  •  this  congre- 
gation is  growing  less — the  elect  are  leaving  us  behind. 
Where  are  they  going  ?  They  are  going  to  meet  Him. 
Hush!  what  shout  is  that?  All  space  echoes  it.  Ah! 
they  have  met — God's  entire  family — angels  descending, 
and  Christians  ascending  j  and  their  thunder  greetings,  and 
earth's  welcome  of  its  coming  King,  shake  the  universe. 
But  wonder  of  wonders  !  where  is  the  earth,  whose  dear  sod 
we  have  trod  from  infancy,  and  from  whose  maternal  bosom 
we  have  extracted  our  lives  ?  The  solid  world  has  rolled 
from  beneath  our  feet,  and  left  us  standing  in  space  ;  and 
yonder  it  goes  along  its  orbit,  every  volcano  bellowing, 
every  continent  blazing,  every  rock  melting,  torn  with  fires 
and  wrapped  in  flames — having  emptied  its  dead  into  the 
lap  of  the  Judgment,  and  now  groaning  with  the  birth-throes 
of  a  new  epoch.  It  has  gone  and  left  us  in  the  presence  of 
the  dread  Judge  of  the  quick  and  the  dead,  probably  as  it 
runs  its  circuit  to  pass  in  sight  a  thousand  times  before  the 
Judgment  closes. 

Calvary's  reign  is  over,  and  Sinai  is  re-enthroned.  The 
Gospel  has  hung  his  trumpet  upon  the  horns  of  heaven's 
altar,  giving  back  the  seal  of  pardon  to  Christ  the  purchaser 
and  owner,  but  now  the  unpardoning  ;  — and  without  a  savior, 
mediator,  or  atonement,  we  must  be  judged  by  the  great 
moral  law  of  the  universe — us  and  all  the  angels  too  ;  a  law 
lequiring  perfect  Holiness,  Justice,  Goodness,  and  Truth, 
and  if  we  have  failed  in  the  perfection  required,  though  the 
failure  be  so  small  as  only  to  be  discernible  by  the  eye  of 
the  infinite  Judge,  and  the  book  of  mediation  reveals  not  an 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  GOSPEL— DISCOURSE  III.    IOI 

actual  atonement  and  actual  pardon  for  the  future  in  ques- 
tion, we  and  them  are  finally  and  eternally  ruined.  The 
pardon  in  question  may  be  obtained  now  by  faith,  but  the 
law  is  not  made  void  thereby,  but  is  the  rule  of  life,  and  the 
rule  of  the  Judgment. 


SERMON   IX. 

CHRIST   THE   WAY    (DISCOURSE    I.). 
"  1  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life." — John  xiv.  6. 

THE  text  is  generally  conceived  to  consist  of  three  parts, 
each  part  independent  of  the  other  parts,  and  com- 
plete outside  of  its  relations  to  the  other  parts.  But  this  is 
not  so.  The  text  is  a  unity.  Christ  had  told  His  disciples 
that  He  was  going  to  prepare  a  place  for  them  in  His  Father's 
house,  and  that  when  the  preparation  was  complete  that  He 
would  come  for  them  and  receive  them  unto  Himself,  adding, 
"  and  whither  I  go  ye  know,  and  the  way  ye  know."  Thomas 
replied,  "  Lord,  we  know  not  whither  thou  goest ;  and  how 
can  we  know  the  way?"  The  question  of  Thomas  involved 
an  inquiry  with  reference  to  a  single  thing.  He  did  not  in- 
terrogate Christ  with  reference  to  abstract  truth  and  life,  or 
with  respect  to  Christ's  relations  to  either  one  or  both  in  the 
abstract;  but  he  simply  inquired  with  reference  to  "the 
way." 

As  the  question  of  Thomas  involved  an  inquiry  only  with 
reference  to  a  single  thing,  so  is  the  text  which  was  Christ's 
reply  an  answer  involving  only  a  single  thing.  Thomas  in- 
quired only  with  reference  to  "  the  way,"  and  Christ  an- 
swered only  that  question — ':  I  am  the  way,  and  as  the  way 
I  am  the  truth,  and  as  the  way  I  am  the  life."  The  words 
truth  and  life  were  only  used  as  they  had  reference  to  the 
great  fact  announced,  "  I  am  the  way  " — the  word  truth  ex- 
pressing the  character  of  "  the  way  j "  the  word  life  as  ex- 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   I.  IO3 

pressing  the  direction  and  end  of  "  the  way  ;  "  as  if  Christ 
had  said,  "  I  am  the  truthful  way  which  leads  to  life." 
Hence,  in  the  remaining  part  of  the  verse  of  which  the  text 
is  the  former  part,  Christ  elucidates  only  the  hist  phrase  in 
the  text — "  I  am  the  way  " — in  the  words,  "  no  man  cometh 
unto  the  Father,  but  by  me  ; "  showing  that  this  phrase  con- 
tained the  gist  of  the  text  as  a  whole,  and  that  the  other 
phrases  were  only  to  be  understood  in  their  relation  to  it, 
the  preeminent,  primal,  and  central  truth  in  the  unity  of  the 
text. 

The  doctrine  of  the  text  is  necessary  to  the  meaning,  con- 
sistency, unity,  power,  and  beauty  of  the  Bible.  It  is  the 
fundamental,  central,  and  crowning  truth  of  the  Bible.  It  is 
that  which  explains  every  apologue,  allegory,  image,  and 
type  in  the  Bible.  It  is  that  which  imparts  significance  to 
every  genealogy,  chronology,  history,  prophecy,  idyl,  and 
epic  in  the  Bible.  It  is  the  master  key  which  unlocks  Reve- 
lation's arcana.  It  is  the  master  hand  which  unravels  its 
mysteries  and  weaves  the  disentangled  threads  into  a  beauti- 
ful web  of  consistent  and  comprehensible  truth.  It  is  the 
chirurgeon  which  opens  Revelation's  bosom,  and  reveals  to 
our  understanding  eyes  the  great  heart  of  the  Bible,  throbbing 
grandly  and  sending  from  its  dilating  ventricles  streams  of 
life  and  glory  circulating  through  the  arteries  of  a  corporate 
Christian  civilization,  developing  the  world  into  the  higher 
life  of  Christ.  It  is  our  guide  along  the  labyrinthine  corri- 
dors of  Revelation's  temple  to  the  internal  Holy  of  Holies, 
where  God  in  Christ  in  splendid  Shekinah  dwells.  It  is  the 
keystone  quarried  by  our  Immanuel  out  of  the  diamond  rocks 
of  heaven,  and  hewn,  chiselled,  and  polished  by  His  artistic 
hand,  while  Calvary  trembled  beneath  the  blows  of  His 
weighty  hammer  which  awakened  the  dead  and  frightened 
created  light  back  into  the  womb  of  uncreated  night,  and 
now  finished  and  duplicated  glitters  in  the  symmetric  arches 


104  SERMONS. 

of  the  beautiful  bridge  of  salvation  stretching  from  the  regions 
of  death  to  the  regions  of  life,  spanning  hell  and  Hades,  its 
every  stone  cemented  by  the  blood  of  its  architect  and 
builder. 

The  text  is  a  unity.  It  contains  but  one  great  doctrine, 
and  that  is,  "Christ  is  the  way."  Such  an  announcement, 
however,  in  the  abstract,  conveys  no  intelligible  idea  to  the 
mind.  The  mind  naturally  inquires  to  know  something  with 
relation  to  the  character  of  the  way,  and  especially  from 
what  and  to  what  the  way  leads.  Christ  in  the  text  recog- 
nizes the  reasonableness  of  such  inquiries,  and  acknowledges 
the  necessity  of  such  demands  upon  the  part  of  the  human 
mind  as  a  condition  to  understand  the  fact  announced,  and 
with  reference  to  the  character  of  the  way  says  it  is  "  the 
truth,"  and  with  reference  to  the  end  of  the  way  says  it  is 
"  the  life."  The  mind  can  reasonably  demand  nothing  more, 
and  as  a  matter  of  course  if  Christ  is  the  truthful  way  to  life, 
it  follows  that  the  way  leads  from  death.  Life  and  death  are 
correlative  terms,  and  when  one  is  mentioned  the  other  is 
necessarily  implied  either  abstractly  or  concretely.  When 
one  is  used  in  the  concrete,  as  the  word  life  is  used  in  the 
text,  as  an  end  to  be  gained,  it  implies  the  existence  of  the 
other  in  the  concrete  ;  and  that  the  subject  for  whose  bene, 
fit  the  way  to  life  is  opened  is  in  a  state  of  death. 

When  I  tell  you  that  I  intend  to  visit  a  friend,  who  as  to 
residence  is  my  antipode,  and  that  he  lives  in  latitude  North 
390,  longitude  East  1030  from  Greenwich,  or  near  the  west- 
ern terminus  of  the  Chinese  wall,  as  a  matter  of  course  you 
understand  that  I  reside  in  latitude  South  390,  longitude 
West  770  from  Greenwich,  or  near  Washington  City.  Unless 
I  do  reside  at  this  place,  myself  and  friend  are  not  antipodes. 
Whenever  I  tell  you  the  place  where  my  friend  resides,  and 
tell  you  that  he  is  my  antipode,  the  place  of  my  residence 
can  be  arrived  at  to  a  mathematical  certainty.     When  I  saj 


CHRIST  THE   WAY — DISCOURSE   I.  105 

that  one  of  us  is  an  antipode,  the  existence  of  the  other  is  at 
once  implied  necessarily,  for  there  can  be  no  antipode  with* 
out  antipodes.  The  necessity  for  the  existence  of  both  is 
patent  upon  the  face  of  the  term.  Now  in  virtue  of  the  cor- 
relation between  life  and  death,  whenever  the  word  life  is 
used  the  existence  of  its  correlative  death  in  the  abstract  or 
concrete  is  implied  necessarily.  And  as  in  the  text,  when 
the  word  life  is  used  as  expressing  a  state  to  be  gained,  death* 
as  a  state  has  a  concrete  existence — and  Christ  as  the  truth- 
ful way  leads  from  death  to  life. 

To  evolve  the  significance  and  strength  of  the  text — Christ 
the  truthful  way  from  death  to  life — let  us  elaborately  exam- 
ine the  termini  of  the  way  :  Life — Death — as  they  are  re- 
lated to  us  whom  Christ  came  to  save,  and  for  the  benefit  of 
whom  he  became  "the  way." 

In  the  beginning  God  created  the  earth.  After  it  was 
sufficiently  elevated  and  refined  for  the  present  creation,  God 
selected  a  beautiful  district  in  the  eastern  part  of  a  tract  of 
country  called  Eden,  and  ornamented  and  planted  it  with 
every  tree  which  was  pleasant  to  the  eyes  and  good  for  food. 
This  district  in  Eden  was  aesthetically  so  beautiful,  and  con- 
tained such  a  variety  of  rich  fruits,  it  was  called  pre-emi- 
nently "  the  garden  of  Eden."  It  was  so  adapted  in  its  geo- 
graphy, geology,  and  temperature,  as  well  as  in  its  collection 
of  animals,  plants,  and  flowers,  to  make  innocent  beings 
happy,  it  was  called  the  garden  of  Paradise.  The  breath  of 
God  cooled  its  fountains,  and  the  fanning  of  seraphic  pinions 
ventilated  its  bovvers.  Dwelling  among  its  superb  beauties 
were  the  first  man  and  the  first  woman,  sublime  in  their 
loveliness,  bearing  the  impress  of  Divinity  upon  their  brows 
and  the  stamp  of  God's  image  upon  their  hearts.  God 
walked  with  them,  talked  with  them,  loved  them.  They 
were  good,  therefore  happy. 

In  this  garden  were  two  trees.     The  first  was  the  tree  of 
5* 


106  SERMONS. 

life,  upon  the  eating  of  the  fruit  of  which  man's  life  appears 
to  have  depended.  The  second  was  the  tree  of  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil,  upon  the  eating  of  the  fruit  of  which  man's 
life  was  forfeited,  and  death  ensued — hence,  "  in  the  day 
that  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die."  And  die 
man  did  that  very  day,  and  in  the  precise  meaning  of  the 
penalty.  The  penalty  of  sin  has  not  that  trinal  form  which 
theologians  give  it,  and  which  they  express  by  the  phrases, 
spiritual  death,  physical  death,  and  eternal  death.  The  pen- 
alty of  sin  is  single,  having  only  that  one  form  necessary 
to  the  existence  of  anything.  It  is  spiritual  death,  or  the 
death  of  the  soul.  This  is  evident  from  the  fact,  that  the 
penalty  of  sin,  scripturally  and  philosophically,  can  only  be 
inflicted  upon  the  subject  who  sins.  The  consequences  of 
the  penalty  may  go  further,  but  upon  the  sinning  subject  the 
penalty  itself  must  expend  all  its  force,  and  then  stop. 

Sin  is  the  violation  of  moral  law.  Nothing  can  sin,  and  as 
a  consequence  incur  the  guilt  of  sin,  and  be  liable  therefore 
to  the  infliction  of  the  penalty  of  sin,  unless  it  be  under  the 
authority  of  the  law  of  which  sin  is  a  violation.  Nothing  can 
be  under  law,  unless  it  is  a  party  to  the  relations  out  of  which 
the  law  arises.  And  though  the  body  is  under  physical  law, 
yet  it,  as  distinguished  from  the  soul,  does  not  sustain  those 
refined  and  spiritual  relations  out  of  which  moral  law  arises, 
therefore  can  be  no  more  under  the  authority  of  moral  law 
than  trees,  stones,  clods,  and  dust.  Again,  sin  is  not  only 
the  violation  of  moral  law,  but  the  voluntary  violation  of 
moral  law.  This  implies  that  the  sinning  subject  must  know 
the  law,  and  that  its  violation  of  the  law  must  be  a  matter  of 
choice  involving  an  alternative — otherwise  the  subject  incurs 
no  guilt,  and  is  not  liable  to  the  infliction  of  the  penalty.  If 
the  subject  who  sins  must  know  the  lav/,  and  its  violation  ot 
the  law  must  be  voluntary,  or  it  does  not  incur  the  guilt  of 
sin,  and  cannot  in  justice  be  liable  to  the  infliction  of  the 


CHRIST  THE   WAY  — DISCOURSE   I.  107 

penalty  of  sin,  it,  the  subject,  must  be  intelligent — and  in- 
telligence belongs  not  to  matter,  or  body,  but  belongs  to 
spirit,  inhering  in  spirit  or  soul,  and  it  only. 

Now  the  body  .not  being  a  party  to  the  relations  out  of 
which  moral  law  arises,  and  not  being  intelligent,  cannot  of 
itself  be  under  the  authority  of  moral  law,  and  cannot  sin  ; 
and  as  the  penalty  of  sin  can  only  be  inflicted  upon  the  sin- 
ning subject,  and  the  body  can  be  nothing  more  than  a  sin- 
ning instrument,  never  a  sinning  subject,  and  cannot  incur 
the  guilt  of  sin,  therefore  physical  death  or  the  death  of  the 
body  is  no  part  of  the  penalty  of  sin.  But  the  soul  being  a 
party  to  the  relations  out  of  which  moral  law  arises,  and  being 
intelligent,  is  under  the  authority  of  moral  law,  and  can  sin  ; 
and  as  the  penalty  of  sin  is  inflicted  upon  the  sinning  sub- 
ject, and  the  soul  is  the  sinning  subject,  and  can  incur  the 
guilt  of  sin,  therefore  spiritual  death  or  the  death  of  the  soul 
is  the  penalty  of  sin.  But  as  the  body  is  the  instrument  of 
sin,  and  physical  immortality  and  spiritual  death  are  inconsis- 
tent with  each  other,  the  body  dies  as  the  result  of  the  death 
of  the  soul.  Eternal  death  is  nothing  different  in  kind  from 
spiritual  death.  The  word  eternal  contains  the  gist  of  the 
difference,  and  that  refers  not  to  the  fact  but  to  the  duration 
of  the  fact.  It  is  the  death  of  the  soul,  without  the  spirit  of 
God — beyond  probation — aggravated  by  the  circumstances 
of  the  future. 

The  ideas  of  physical  life  and  physical  death  are  not  pri- 
marily included  in  the  penalty  of  man's  transgression  an- 
nounced in  the  beginning.  Though  man  is  essentially  a  com- 
plex being — a  body  and  soul  being  necessary  to  his  constitu- 
tion as  man — yet  the  soul  being  the  seat  of  intelligent  life, 
and  its  separation  from  the  body  seeming  to  involve  the 
death  of  the  body,  it  is  the  real  man,  and  its  life  is  the  life  of 
the  man.  The  life  of  the  body  considered  in  the  abstract  is 
nothing  but  a  low,  unconscious  vitality  found  in  the  circu!a- 


f08  SERMONS. 

tion  of  fluids,  the  action  of  organic  functions  and  chemica* 
agents.  Even  its  destruction  seems  not  to  affect  the  con- 
scious intelligent  life  of  the  soul.  It  is  the  soul,  that  part 
of  man  which  from  its  constitution  and  endowments  is  philo- 
sophically responsible  to  law,  whose  life  was  threatened  in 
the  first  penalty,  and  whose  life  was  destroyed  by  the  first 
transgression. 

Sin  from  its  nature  can  philosophically  destroy  every  ele- 
ment of  spiritual  life — which  I  will  show  you  by  and  by  ;  but 
it  has  no  such  power  upon  the  abstract  life  of  the  body. 
The  body  does  not  sustain  the  relations  out  of  which  the 
moral  law  arises,  and  is  destitute  of  intelligence  and  cannot 
choose  between  right  and  wrong,  therefore  is  not  under  the 
law  of  which  sin  is  the  violation  and  cannot  sin,  and  being 
incapable  to  sin  cannot  incur  the  guilt  of  sin — and  the  pen- 
alty of  sin  is  not  arbitrary,  but  philosophically  inseparable 
with  sin  itself,  and  philosophically  inflicted  simultaneously 
with  the  act  of  sin  according  to  the  laws  of  cause  and  effect, 
which  I  will  endeavor  to  elaborate  and  demonstrate  before  I 
am  done.  The  life  of  the  soul  is  the  true  life,  and  the  life 
about  which  Christ  speaks  when  He  says  :  "Whosoever  liv- 
eth  and  believeth  in  me  shall  never  die "  (John  xi.  26). 
"  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life ;  and  he 
that  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see  life ;  but  the  wrath 
of  God  abideth  on  him  "  (John  iii.  36).  Here  spiritual  life 
and  spiritual  death  are  both  defined,  and  stand  forth. 

Many  persons'  ideas  never  rise  higher  than  their  bodies, 
hence  with  them  physical  death  is  the  greatest  of  all  cala- 
mities, physical  life  the  highest  of  all  blessings,  and  the  resur- 
rection of  their  bodies  the  grandest  provision  in  redemption 
as  well  as  the  most  comforting  doctrine  in  the  Bible.  Christ 
had  to  contend  with  such  materialism  when  upon  earth. 
When  He  was  teaching  in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum, 
among  other  things  He  said  :  "  I  am  the  living  bread  which 


CHFIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE  I.  109 

came  down  from  heaven  :  if  any  man  eat  of  this  bread,  he 
shall  live  forever.  .  .  .  Whoso  eateth  my  flesh,  and  drink- 
eth  my  blood,  hath  eternal  life."  Many  of  His  disciples  pro- 
nounced this  a  "  hard  saying,"  and  "  went  back,  and  walked 
no  more  with  him."  Upon  another  occasion,  when  teach- 
ing in  the  temple,  He  said,  in  allusion  to  His  own  teach- 
ings :  "  If  a  man  keep  my  saying,  he  shall  never  taste  of 
death."  The  materialistic  Jews  thought  He  meant  the  death 
of  the  body  as  matter  of  course,  when  as  a  matter  of  course 
He  did  not,  and  replied  substantially,  controverting  His  doc- 
trine, "Abraham  and  the  prophets  kept  thy  sayings  and 
they  are  dead."  Christ  alluded  to  the  life  and  death  of  the 
soul,  which  are  the  ideas  involved  in  the  penalty  of  trans- 
gression announced  in  the  beginning.  And  whenever  I  use 
the  words  life  and  death  in  this  discourse,  I  use  them  in  their 
prime  and  original  signification,  without  any  reference  to  the 
life  and  death  of  the  body  unless  so  stated  at  the  time. 

With  reference  to  the  reality  of  the  two  trees  in  the  garden, 
as  literal  trees,  and  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made  : 
they  were  the  representatives  of  two  antipodal  states — Life 
and  Death — each  generic  and  causative  of  respective  and 
appropriate  phenomena,  ever  departing  until  they  both  ulti- 
mate in  their  extreme  divergence  in  a  state  of  future  rewards, 
and  future  punishments.  Life  and  death  are  both  states,  and 
constitute  what  may  be  called  the  foci  in  the  grand  ellipse  of 
moral  retribution,  and  in  a  qualified  sense  are  the  corre- 
spondent results  respectively  of  good  and  evil,  the  foci  of 
God's  moral  system. 

Life  is  the  normal  state  of  spiritual  intelligent  being.  It 
was  the  state  in  which  God  made  all  the  angels,  and  in  which 
He  made  man  prior  to  man's  subjection  to  any  of  the  condi- 
tions of  probation.  Indeed  it  was  inconsistent  with  God's 
nature  to  make  them  otherwise.  But  that  their  good  char- 
acter might  not  be  the  necessary  result  of  their  creation,  but 


IIO  SERMONS. 

might  be  a  matter  of  choice  upon  their  parts — without  which 
choice  they  could  not  be  said  to  have  any  character  at  all,  or 
be  subjects  of  retribution — He  subjected  His  work  to  the 
voluntary  endorsement  of  their  unbiased  moral  agency,  and 
made  the  perpetuity  of  their  life  depend  upon  conditions. 
With  relation  to  man  the  conditions  appear  to  have  been 
complex — he  must  do  something  on  the  one  hand,  and  not 
do  something  on  the  other ;  he  must  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the 
tree  of  life,  and  not  eat  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil.  Life  being  his  normal  state,  however,  there 
was  no  express  command  enjoining  him  to  eat  of  the  fruit  of 
the  tree  of  life — it  was  treated  as  a  kind  of  privilege — but 
there  was  an  express  prohibition  with  reference  to  the  other 
■ — "  But  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  thou 
shalt  not  eat  of  it." 

Life  is  the  normal  state  of  man — the  state  in  which  God 
created  him.  The  whole  system  of  God  including  the  mate- 
rial, spiritual,  and  moral — the  respective  governments  and 
laws  of  the  three,  constitute  a  compact,  symmetric,  magnifi- 
cent unity.  There  are  no  heterogeneities,  anomalies,  isola- 
tions, independencies.  Every  principle,  element,  and  thing, 
is  constitutionally  adjusted  and  adapted  to  every  other  ele- 
ment, principle,  and  thing,  harmonizing  into  one  great  whole 
of  which  God  is  the  royal  Archetype,  the  governing  Head, 
the  vital  Centrality,  the  intelligent  Sensorium,  the  essential 
Substratum.  Man  in  a  state  of  life,  in  his  normal  state  as 
God  made  him,  was  a  unity  in  the  unity  of  God's  system, 
and  his  complex  and  multiform  relations  were  adjusted  to 
the  phenomena  of  universal  being — the  unity  of  the  whole 
being  but  the  transcript  of  the  unity  of  Deity,  in  the  consti- 
tution of  whose  nature  our  minds  find  the  ultimate  reason  for 
all  that  is  good,  right,  and  proper,  in  the  universe. 

Such  being  Man's  relations  to  universal  being  in  his  nor- 
mal state,  or  in  a  state  of  life,  he  was  in  harmony  with  God. 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   I.  Ill 

Man's  capacity  for  moral  character  is  threefold — expressed 
by  the  words  intellect,  sensibilities,  and  conduct.  Spiritual 
life  is  also  threefold  in  its  character — having  a  principle,  an 
essence,  and  a  development.  The  principle  of  spiritual  life 
is  faith  in  God,  the  essence  of  spiritual  life  is  love  to  God, 
the  development  of  spiritual  life  is  obedience  to  God.  Tha*- 
faith  in  God  is  an  element  of  spiritual  life  Christ  taught, 
when  He  said  :  "  He  that  belie veth  on  him  that  sent  me 
hath  everlasting  life."  That  love  to  God  is  an  element  in 
spiritual  life  James  taught  by  a  philosophical  implication, 
when  he  said  the  Christian  should  receive  the  crown  of  life, 
"which  the  Lord  had  promised  to  them  that  love  him." 
That  obedience  to  God  is  an  element  of  spiritual  life  Christ 
taught,  when  He  said :  "  If  a  man  keep  my  saying,  he  shall 
never  see  death." 

Man's  capacity  for  moral  character  is  threefold ;  the  char- 
acter of  spiritual  life  is  threefold.  Between  man's  capacity 
for  moral  character,  and  the  character  of  spiritual  life  there 
is  a  correspondence.  Each  part  of  man's  threefold  capacity 
for  moral  character  has  its  corresponding  a-nd  appropriate 
element  in  the  threefold  nature  of  spiritual  life.  Faith  in 
God  the  principle  in  spiritual  life  is  lodged  in  man's  intellect ; 
love  to  God  the  essence  of  spiritual  life  is  lodged  in  man's 
sensibilities  ;  obedience  to  God  the  development  of  spirit- 
ual life  is  lodged  in  man's  conduct.  The  state  of  such  a  man 
is  expressed  by  the  word  life.  I  have  shown  you  that  faith 
in  God,  love  to  God,  and  obedience  to  God,  are  all  ele- 
ments of  spiritual  life.  I  have  also  presented  you  these  ele- 
ments in  their  relations  to  spiritual  life — defining  one  to  be 
the  principle,  another  the  essence,  and  the  third  to  be  the 
development.      In  this  I  am  philosophic. 

Faith  in  God  must  be  the  principle  of  spiritual  life,  because 
of  its  intellectual  character,  and  of  its  relations  to  love  and 
obedience.     From  its  nature  it  lies  at  the  root  of  both  the 


112  SERMONS. 

others,  and  must  have  a  priority  of  existence  in  the  mind  to 
the  others,  or  the  others  cannot  exist  at  all.  Can  you  con 
ceive  of  love  to  God,  and  obedience  to  God,  without  the 
prior  condition  of  faith  in  God  ?  It  is  equally  clear  that  love 
is  the  essence  of  spiritual  life.  Love  is  the  essence  of  God's 
moral  character — that  character  which  is  the  standard  of  per- 
fection to  which  man  was  made  to  ever  assimilate  in  his 
character — that  character  which  is  the  Archetype  from  which 
all  laws  possibly  binding  upon  man  must  necessarily  be 
copied.  Love  is  the  essence  of  God's  moral  character,  the 
essence  of  God's  moral  law,  the  vis  vitce  of  God's  moral  sys- 
tem. Could  it  be  otherwise  than  that  love  should  be  the  es- 
sence of  man's  spiritual  life,  who,  is  himself,  but  a  miniature 
copy  of  the  Creator,  and  sustaining  the  relations  he  does  is 
necessarily  under  moral  law  ?  That  obedience  to  God  is  the 
development  of  spiritual  life  is  too  clear  to  admit  of  a  doubt, 
and  will  be  received  as  truth  from  the  mere  statement.  In 
the  lodgment  of  the  elements  of  spiritual  life,  placing  faith  its 
principle  in  the  intellect,  and  love  its  essence  in  the  sensi- 
bilities, I  do  not  mean  to  circumscribe  them  by  the  Psycho- 
logical circumscriptions  of  the  intellect  and  sensibilities,  for 
they  both  have  to  do  with  the  mind,  more  or  less,  as  a  whole  ; 
and  considering  the  present  defective  analysis  of  mind  I 
could  do  no  better — and  as  long  as  mental  philosophers  con- 
tinue to  ignore  the  unity  of  mind  we  can  hope  for  but  little 
improvement  in  that  direction. 

Now  this  was  man's  normal  state.  Faith  in  God  was  in 
his  mind,  love  to  God  in  his  heart,  and  obedience  to  God 
was  the  characteristic  of  his  conduct — and  man  was  spirit- 
ually alive.  Man  possessed  spiritual  life,  but  not  in  virtue 
of  his  constitution,  not  as  an  effect  of  nature.  His  life  de- 
pended upon  some  cause  distinct  from  himself,  and  indepen- 
dent of  himself.  This  cause  was  symbolized  by  the  tree  of 
life,  showing  that  the  source  of  man's  life  was  outside  man's 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   I.  113 

constitution,  and  being  outside  of  his  constitution  he  might 
be  separated  from  it,  and  as  life  and  existence  are  not  con- 
vertible terms,  yet  continue  to  be.  God  after  He  made  man 
breathed  into  him  spiritual  life  as  well  as  animal  life.  The 
text  is,  "The  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the 
ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  lives  (the 
plural  is  used  in  the  Hebrew) ;  and  man  became  a  living 
soul."  God  breathed  into  the  first  man  more  than  one  life, 
and  in  more  respects  than  one  "  man  became  a  living  soul." 
God  not  only  as  the  great  First  Cause  originated  man's  spir- 
itual life,  but  that  life  depended  for  its  continued  existence 
upon  God's  constant  intercourse  with  the  soul,  upon  man's 
union  and  communion  with  God,  upon  the  enthronement  of 
in-dwelling  Deity  in  man's  heart.  The  life  of  plants  did  not 
depend  more  upon  the  earth  maintaining  its  proper  relations 
to  the  sun,  than  did  man's  spiritual  life  depend  upon  him 
maintaining  such  aspects  with  relation  to  Deity  that  he  could 
constantly  receive  the  vital  influence  of  God  upon  his  nature 
and  faculties. 

As  man's  spiritual  life  depended  upon  his  union  with  God, 
there  must  have  been  a  cognizable  and  namable  bond  of  con- 
nection between  man  and  God.  This  bond  could  not  have 
been  faith  and  obedience,  the  principle  and  development  of 
spiritual  life  ;  for  God  did  not  have  them  in  common  with 
the  creature,  and  also  because  for  such  a  use  they  were  phi- 
losophically incompetent.  Such  a  bond  must  have  been 
something  which  was  common  to  the  nature  of  both  ;  some- 
thing whose  philosophic  reasons  were  found  in  the  relations 
of  both ;  something  which  expressed  the  essence  of  the 
moral  character  of  both ;  something  which  expressed  the 
nature  of  the  law  emanating  from  God  as  a  lawgiver,  and 
binding  upon  man  as  a  subject.  What  then  must  have  con- 
stituted this  bond  of  union  between  God  and  man,  in  virtue 
of  which  man's  spiritual  life  was,  and  was  perpetuated?     I 


114  SERMONS. 

answer  Love.  In  this,  every  philosophic  condition  involved 
necessary  to  make  it  the  bond  of  union  between  God  and 
man  was  fully  met.  Love  was  the  essence  of  God's  high 
moral  life.  Love  was  the  essence  of  man's  spiritual  life. 
Like  attracts  its  like — love  attracts  love — the  smaller  mov 
ing  to  the  greater  in  proportion  as  it  is  smaller,  and  man  was 
drawn  to  his  God,  and  from  the  very  heart  of  Deity  received 
his  life. 

In  our  solar  system  planets  revolve  around  the  sun.  The 
proximate  cause  of  their  abstract  motion  along  their  orbits 
we  do  not  know.  But  their  motion  around  the  sun  as  the 
centre  is  the  effect  of  a  compromise  between  the  centripetal 
and  centrifugal  forces.  The  centripetal  force  is  the  result 
of  the  attraction  between  the  sun  and  the  planets,  and  its 
tendency  to  draw  the  planets  into  the  sun.  The  centrifugal 
force  is  the  result  of  the  planets'  momenta  as  they  move 
through  space,  and  its  tendency  is  to  fling  the  planets  from 
the  sun,  "in  the  direction  of  the  tangent  to  the  paths  "  they 
describe.  Centripetal  literally  means  to  seek  the  centre — 
the  centripetal  force  draws  the  planets  towards  the  centre  ; 
centrifugal  literally  means  to  flee  the  centre — the  centrifugal 
force  is  "the  force  with  which  a  revolving  body  tends  to  fly 
from  the  centre  of  motion."  The  power  of  these  two  forces 
in  their  operation  upon  the  planets  is  equalized.  Being  op- 
posed to  each  other,  and  being  equal,  the  peculiar  power  of 
each  is  countervailed  by  the  power  of  the  other,  and  the 
planets  obey  both — neither  departing  from  the  sun,  or  going 
into  the  sun,  but  moving  on  a  line  of  compromise  between 
both,  going  round  the  sun. 

This  equalization  of  these  two  forces  is  better  understood 
when  thus  expressed  :  The  planets  are  attracted  to  the  sun 
in  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  matter  they  contain.  To 
prevent  them,  however,  from  being  drawn  into  the  sun  by  this 
attraction,  these  planets  are  put  in  motion,  and  the  velocity 


CHRIST  THE   WAY — DISCOURSE   I.  II  J 

of  the  motion  is  proportioned  to  the  sun's  attraction^  that 
the  tendency  to  depart  from  the  sun  generated  by  their 
speed  is  made  to  equalize  that  power.  In  the  proportion  as 
a  planet  is  nearer  the  sun  the  power  of  the  sun's  attraction 
over  it  is  greater,  hence  the  motion  of  the  planet  in  propor- 
tion as  it  is  near  the  sun,  in  which  motion  the  opposing 
power  is  generated,  is  always  greater.  Planets  move  more 
rapidly  along  their  orbits  in  their  perihelion,  and  more  slowly 
in  their  aphelion. 

Now  as  the  sun  is  the  centre  of  our  solar  system,  so  God 
is  the  centre  of  the  moral  universe,  around  which  all  moral 
beings  were  created  to  move  according  to  laws  as  real,  un- 
alterable, fixed,  and  mathematical  as  the  laws  governing  the 
revolutions  of  the  planets.  Man's  individuality  constituted 
the  centrifugal  force,  his  love  to  God  constituted  the  cen- 
tripetal force.  Both  forces  were  properly  equalized,  and 
man  moved  around  God  as  his  natural  centre.  His  axis 
properly  adjusted  to  the  plane  of  his  orbit,  and  bearing  mir- 
rored in  the  depths  of  his  beautiful  nature,  the  face  and  char- 
acter of  God,  in  company  with  other  orbs  of  various  magni- 
tudes all  moving  upon  orbits  concentric,  he  flew  sublimely 
along  the  pathway  of  his  towering  destiny.  Man's  relations 
to  God  in  a  state  of  life  were  a  perfect  harmony.  His  will 
the  highest  power  in  his  intelligence,  the  governing  principle 
in  his  nature,  the  point  at  which  character  is  created,  with 
the  spontaneous  consent  of  his  whole  nature,  submitted  to 
the  will  of  God.  His  will  was  free,  but  in  the  exercise  of 
the  high  prerogative  of  its  inherent  freedom  it  chose  har- 
mony with  the  will  of  God  as  the  noblest  end  of  human 
liberty.  So  harmoniously  perfect  were  man's  relations  to 
Deity,  he  could,  from  the  very  depths  of  his  being,  hold  sweet 
communion  with  God  every  moment  of  his  blissful  existence. 
O,  this  was  life — life  indeed  ! 

Man,  in  a  state  of  life,  was  in  harmony  with  the  universal 


1 1 6  SERMONS. 

system  of  God.  Being  in  harmony  with  God,  the  system's 
Head  and  Archetype,  he  could  not  be  otherwise  than  in 
harmony  with  the  system  itself.  Being  in  harmony  with  the 
Great  Moral  Sun,  he  could  not  be  otherwise  than  in  harmo- 
ny with  his  brother  orbs.  His  body  was  in  complete  harmony 
with  the  material  below  him,  his  soul  was  in  complete 
harmony  with  the  spiritual  above  him.  Having  a  soul  and 
body  he  was,  as  he  is  now,  the  central  link  in  the  unity  of 
the  chain  of  universal  being  connecting  inorganic  dust  to 
uncreated  God.  In  the  perfectly  adjusted  duality  of  his  origi- 
nal nature  the  spiritual  and  material  met  in  harmony,  and  the 
lines  of  sympathy  between  the  two  threaded  his  constitution, 
and  were  there  woven  into  organic  unity.  He  was  in  sym- 
pathy with  both  worlds,  and  capable  of  communion  with  both. 
Complex  in  his  constitution  he  was  complex  in  his  powers, 
capabilities  and  senses.  He  was  the  brother  of  angels  and 
the  king  of  the  mammals — he  was  both,  without  a  contradic- 
tion. 

Man  in  a  state  of  life,  was  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  the 
universal  system  of  God.  As  a  physical  being  he  was  under 
the  physical  law,  or  the  laws  of  nature.  As  a  spiritual  being 
he  was  under  the  subtile  and  immutable  laws  of  mind  or 
spirit.  As  a  moral  being  he  was  under  moral  law.  Yet  the 
different  administrations  of  the  Divine  Government  in  the 
physical,  spiritual,  and  moral  departments  of  that  govern- 
ment were  so  harmonious  and  reciprocal;  and  the  conjunc- 
tion-of  physical,  spiritual  and  moral  causes  was  so  natural, 
and  universal  being  so  perfectly  transcriptive  of  the  consti- 
tutional unity  of  God's  nature,  in  which  all  primal  causes 
are  found ;  and  man's  relations  to  all  so  perfectly  adjusted 
and  balanced  ;  that  man's  obedience  to  physical  law  as  a  sub- 
ject of  God's  physical  government,  his  obedience  to  spiritual 
law  as  a  subject  of  God's  spiritual  government,  and  his 
obedience  to  moral  law  as  a  subject  of  God's  moral  govern. 


CHRIST  THE   WAY — DISCOURSE   I.  W] 

ment,  was  harmonious  and  perfect.  In  fact,  his  obedience 
to  one  harmonized  with  his  obedience  to  both  the  others. 
Indeed,  had  he  disobeyed  one  it  would  have  been  an  infrac- 
tion of  the  spirit  of  all,  and  brought  him  under  the  censure 
of  all. 

Man,  in  a  state  of  life,  was  in  harmony  with  all  his  social 
and  domestic  relations.  Had  man  continued  in  the  state  in 
which  God  had  created  him  till  his  race  had  multiplied  into 
communities,  every  individual's  character  and  life  would 
have  harmonized  with  reference  to  every  other  individual  in 
the  great  social  body  corporate.  Universal  human  society 
would  have  been  a  universal  harmony,  every  individual 
naturally  adjusting  himself  to  the  great  whole  according  to 
the  peculiarities,  value,  and  power  of  his  character.  But 
when  God  created  man  He  created  him  already  male  and 
female,  in  the  presence  of  the  holy  angels,  surrounded  by 
the  splendid  beauties  of  the  world's  Eden,  heaven's  choir 
singing  the  hymeneal,  instituted  the  marriage  relation,  cele- 
brated the  nuptials  of  the  world's  first  bride  with  the  world's 
first  bridegroom,  Himself,  and  formed  the  family  constitution 
— adjusting  according  to  reason  found  in  the  peculiar  natures 
of  both  the  masculine  and  feminine  sides  of  the  genus  to 
each  other,  crowning  the  male  the  head  of  the  family,  and 
investing  him  in  an  important  sense  with  the  high  preroga- 
tives of  God's  vicegerent  in  the  government  of  the  world, 
subordinating  in  the  arrangement  the  emotional  to  the 
intellectual. 

Man,  in  a  state  of  life,  was  a  harmony  in  and  of  himself. 
All  his  physical,  spiritual,  and  moral  powers  were  adjusted 
with  relation  to  each  other.  If  one  power  had  the  prece- 
dence over  another  power,  or  one  class  of  powers  had  the 
precedence  over  another  class,  the  degree  of  the  precedence 
was  in  exact  proportion  to  the  superiority  of  the  nature  of  the 
powers  in  question.     As  the   soul  was  the  superior  part  of 


Il8  SERMONS. 

the  man,  the  spiritual  in  man  was  elevated  above  the  mate 
rial,  the  intellectual  above  the  sensual.  He  was  not  only 
"  made  upright  "  in  the  sense  of  moral  rectitude,  the  true 
meaning  of  Solomon's  expression,  but  he  was  made  right' 
side  up.  A  considerable  part  of  virtue,  now,  consists  in 
maintaining  the  original  order  of  man's  constitution.  Ac- 
cording to  these  principles  God  constituted  man  a  perfect 
harmony  in  and  of  himself.  Indeed,  man  was  a  miniature 
duplicate  of  God,  and  God  was,  and  is,  essentially  a  har- 
mony in  and  of  Himself.  Man  was  made  like  God,  in 
many  noble  and  sublime  respects.  Like  God  he  was  spiri- 
tual ;  like  God  he  was  intellectual ;  like  God  he  was  immor- 
tal ;  like  God  he  was  "good" — not  only  good,  but  "very 
good."  This  was  God's  pronunciamento,  when,  after  man's 
creation,  He  inspected  him.  Man  was  like  God,  but  that 
image  of  God  in  which  the  Scriptures  teach  man  was  made 
was  not  God's  natural  image,  for  such  an  image  could  not 
be  lost  and  regained  by  the  creature,  but  God's  moral  image 
— the  image  of  God's  moral  perfections,  an  accurate  minia- 
ture representation  of  God's  character. — (Col.  iii.  10  ;  Eph. 
iv.  2.) 

Man  was  created  in  Gods  image*  There  was  a  period, 
however  remote,  when  there  was  no  material  thing — not  a 
breath  of  air,  not  a  ripple  of  ether,  not  a  particle  of  matter, 
not  a  minim  of  water,  nothing  ponderable  or  imponderable, 
tangible  or  intangible,  visible  or  invisible,  no  elementary  or 
monadic  thing — an  inconceivable  and  indescribable  nihility — 
nothing.  Being  no  material  causes  there  were  no  material 
effects  ;  hence  there  was  no  light  as  the  result  of  a  material 
agency,  but  universal  and  absolute  darkness  rilled  all  space — 
darkness  as  black   as   the  ebon  pall  of  the  dead,  black   as 

*  It  it  proper  to  state  that  this  elaborate  description  of  the  creation  of  man 
is  inserted  against  the  taste  and  intention  o.  its  author,  as  I  find  it  crossed 
out  of  the  sermon.— J.  C.  K. 


CHRIST  THE   WAY — DISCOURSE   I.  119 

hell's  sable  badge  and  pitchy  scowl ;  darkness  unrelieved  by 
the  briefest  spark  or  feeblest  glimmer ;  darkness  as  measure- 
less, boundless,  and  infinite  as  space.  In  it  God  only  was, 
and  He  filled  it,  and  His  Spirit  floated  instinct  with  latent 
creative  power  upon  every  Cimmerian  wave  which  rolled 
through  the  boundless  and  bottomless  void. 

But  God  resolved  to  commence  a  grand  and  stupendous 
work,  and  in  the  plenipotency  of  His  triune  Godhead,  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost — for  the  text  reads,  "  In  the  beginning 
God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth  " — by  the  almighti- 
ness  of  His  overcoming  power,  and  the  triumph  of  His  in- 
vincible "  Let  it  be  done  "  commencing  in  the  darkness  in 
the  awful  solitude  of  Himself,  He  laid  creation's  foundations 
deep,  wide,  vast,  solid,  heavy,  incumbent  on  Night's  brawny 
back,  and  told  the  conquered  king  that  prostrate  upon  the 
ruins  of  his  own  shattered  throne,  he  must  bear  the  ponder- 
ous load  without  a  quiver  or  a  groan,  and  bear  it  forever. 
Worlds  were  made,  mountain  vertebrated,  with  hearts  of 
fire,  with  granite  bones  and  nerves  of  richest  ore,  with  flesh 
of  softest  mould,  and  clothed  with  verdant  turf  fringed  with 
forests  and  thrown  around  their  broad  shoulders  and  tied 
there  by  rivers  whose  fountain  lakelets  lay  glittering  upon 
their  bosoms  like  great  medallions  of  solid  crystal,  embossed 
with  miniature  images  of  their  planetary  sisters  shining  away 
in  the  zenith.  Thus  arrayed,  and  their  huge  waists  girded 
with  oceanic  zones,  they  whirled  out  into  space,  sought  their 
appropriate  orbits,  and  commenced  the  run  of  their  eternal 
circuits. 

In  harmonious  accompaniment  were  the  attendant  moons 
circumvolving,  their  primaries  shaking  from  their  argentine 
locks  sheeny  silver  rattling  down  the  sky  and  baptizing  sea 
and  land  with  beauty.  While  from  God's  great  anvil,  with 
every  stroke  of  His  mighty  hammer  suns  sprangr  blazing, 
and  habited  with  fiery  splendor  and  dazzling  magnificence, 


120  SERMONS. 

ascended  to  their  central  thrones.  And  as  Atlas  of  old  was 
forced  by  Jove  to  support  the  heaven  on  his  head  and  hands, 
so  imperial  Night  being  conquered,  and  forced  by  his  con- 
queror to  bear  up  the  foundations  of  all  creation,  his  black 
squadrons  were  utterly  confounded  and  fled,  and  Light, 
Beauty,  and  Glory,  flung  their  mantles  of  azure,  gemmed 
with  stars,  over  their  retreat  to  hide  their  dusky  forms,  and 
singing  angels  overpowered  the  discordant  thunder  of  their 
panic,  with  lullabies  over  the  cradle  of  an  infant  universe. 
Order,  full  panoplied  like  Athene  from  the  head  of  Zeus, 
sprang  from  the  mind  of  God,  and  completed  the  work  by 
the  geometrical  adjustment  of  all  creation's  parts,  and  hung 
the  whole  instinct  with  motion  and  propless  out  in  space 
magnificently  balanced. 

But  was  creation's  work  completed  ?  To  announce  it  so 
is  rather  premature — it  was  nearly  finished,  but  not  quite — 
creation  had  no  crown.  The  work  had  ascended  in  grada- 
tional  grandeur,  and  sublimest  method  from  nought  to  or- 
ganic being,  but  it  lacked  one  piece  to  magnificently  cap  the 
whole,  perfecting  creation  as  to  architecture  and  design,  and 
connecting  it  in  one  solid  system  with  the  spiritual  above. 
Every  line  of  order,  every  thread  of  unity,  every  chain  of 
degrees  had  been  carried  up  the  climax,  but  one  piece  was 
lacking  to  fasten  all  the  ends  of  the  lines,  and  threads,  and 
chains,  welding  them  together  in  itself,  and  ensuring  the 
unity  and  permanency  of  the  whole.  Creation  lacked  its 
microcosmical  masterpiece,  man.  Now,  God  called  a 
council — a  formal  convocation  of  the  persons  of  the  adorable 
Trinity.  Notwithstanding  creation's  stupendous  scheme, 
and  the  problems  to  solve  in  its  building,  and  though  God 
in  Trinity  conceived  the  scheme,  and  God  in  Trinity  executed 
it,  yet  such  a  council  appears  not  to  have  been  necessary 
before  ;  but  now,  God  in  Trinity  counselled  :  "  Let  us  make 
man,"  so  they  resolved  :  but  How  ? 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   I.  121 

The  evening  star  gently  opened  a  window  of  her  splendid 
home  in  the  far-off  Hesperian,  and  stepped  out  upon  a  ceru- 
lean balcony  balustered  with  sapphire,  her  beautiful  robe  of 
ethereal  azure,  with"  borders  glinted  with  vermilion  falling 
gracefully  about  her  lovely  form,  her  fair  brow  wearing  a 
crown  of  diamonds,  her  luxuriant  tresses  of  glittering  gold 
dropping  to  her  silver  sandals,  her  sweet,  sweet  face  upturned, 
all  the  stars  applauding,  and  said,  "Make  him  like  me." 
But  God  said  "  No."  Now,  fair  Selene,  the  gentle  moon, 
queen  of  the  night,  her  robe  of  hoary  light  fringed  with 
aureate  and  trailing  in  the  ocean's  brine,  escorted  by  the 
constellations  and  coming  in  royal  procession  along  the  sky, 
turned  her  cold  chaste  face  radiant  with  beauty,  and  looked 
with  her  fine  eye  of  conscious  purity  and  unfeigned  reverence 
at  God  her  maker,  and  said,  *'  Make  him  like  me."  But 
God  blessed  her,  and  then  said,  "  No." 

Next  Eos,  the  Latin-named  Aurora,  the  superb  goddess  of 
the  dawn,  robed  in  saffron  attire  embroidered  with  crimson, 
opened  the  gates  of  the  Orient  with,  her  rosy  fingers,  and 
mounted  her  chariot  which  came  rolling  along  the  amber- 
paved  highway  of  the  Levant,  her  beautiful  veil  floating  in 
the  breath  of  Eurus,  and  pinned  upon  her  brow  with  the 
star  of  the  morning,  and  pearly  dew  trickling  down  her  cheeks, 
and  sifting  through  the  air  upon  pastures  floral  and  green, 
and  said,  "Make  him  like  me."  But,  again,  God  said, 
"  No."  Next,  golden-slippered  Iris,  the  charming  daughter 
of  Thaumus  and  Electra — Wonder  and  Brightness — standing 
upon  the  arch  of  the  rainbow,  flinging  kisses  at  the  rumbling 
thunder,  and  pencilling  blushes  upon  the  cheeks  of  the  storm 
and  smiles  upon  the  ugly  face  of  the  tempest,  the  pattering 
rain  dancing  to  the  music  of  her  laugh,  said,  "  Make  him  like 
me."     But,  again,  God  said,  "  No." 

Next,  Helios,  the  grand  god  of  the  sun,  and  king  of  the 
firmament,  the  material  type  of  the  immaterial  God,  arrayed 


122  SERMONS. 

in  his  imperial  robes  woven  with  polychromatic  woof  into  a 
warp  of  splendid  fire,  whose  sceptre  was  a  solid  carbuncle 
tipped  with  flame,  and  whose  imperial  crown  threatened  to 
kindle  the  universe  into  one  wide  inextinguishable  conflaora- 
tion,  mounted  his  burning  chariot-throne  rolling  upon  wheels 
of  torrid  amber  and  drawn  by  steeds  shod  with  lightning, 
whose  quivering  manes  dropped  golden  frost,  and  whose  lus- 
trous trappings  were  ablaze  with  jewels  and  gold,  and  magni- 
ficently attended,  ascended  the  east.  At  his  coming  the 
Evening  Star  turned  pale  with  reverence,  lifted  her  diadem, 
and  retired  to  her  boudoir  ;  fair  Selene,  abashed,  retreated 
to  her  palace  ;  Aurora  fled  westwardly  ;  and  Iris  stood  away 
on  a  distant  cloud — in  after-times  the  sailor's  warning  as  well 
as  the  seal  of  the  Noachian  promise — respectfully  keeping 
her  proper  distance  ;  while  all  the  stars,  affrighted,  ran  out 
of  his  path  and  hid  themselves.  But  this  monarch  of  the 
planets,  unconscious  of  the  reverence  paid  him,  and  ambi- 
tious of  a  greater  honor,  with  steady  rein  drove  along  the 
ecliptic,  and  halting  upon  the  summit  of  its  towering  arch, 
whose  keystone  is  now  worn  smooth  by  the  feet  of  descend- 
ing and  ascending  angels  resting  midway  between  earth  and 
heaven,  turned  his  dazzling  face  and  fiery  eye  to  God  in 
council,  and  said  with  confidence,  "  Make  him  like  me." — 
Though  splendid  he  was,  yet  he  met  not  God's  ideal  of  a 
man,  and  God  said,  "  No." 

Next,  an  Archangel  shining  with  the  pure  ethereal  light  of 
the  spiritual  and  heavenly,  unfolded  his  broad  wings  of  daz- 
zling splendor,  and  faster  than  ever  comet  flashed  through 
the  constellated  fields  of  immeasurable  space,  shaving  by 
turns  in  his  rapid  flight  heaven's  horizontal  floors  and  firma- 
mental  domes,  flew  to  Deity,  and  pausing  let  down  his  wings 
and  stood  sublime  in  beauty  and  effulgent  with  glory,  and 
said,  "  Make  him  like  me."  But,  still,  Heaven's  ideal  of  a 
man  was  unrealized,  and  again,  God  said  "  No."     The  Trio- 


CHRIST  THE   WAY — DISCOURSE   I.  1 23 

ity  in  council  resolved  to  make  man,  but  they  had  a  higher 
Archetype  than  all  these — "  Let  us  make  man." — How  ? 

Hear  it  ye  swimming  tribes  which  sport  in  scaly  silver  and 
lamellated  gold  in  pellucid  floods  ;  hear  it  ye  winged  deni- 
zens of  the  air  which  soar  in  polished  quills  and  glittering 
plumage  ;  hear  it  ye  muscular  tenants  of  the  forest  whose 
haughty  tramp  crushes  your  mother  sod,  and  whose  lordly 
roaring  shakes  the  hills  ;  hear  it  ye  dashing  comets  in  whose 
ethereal  tracks  your  outwent  glories  trail,  and  glimmer,  and 
scintillate,  and  die ;  hear  it  ye  stars  which  shine  away  upon 
your  lofty  towers  of  azure  beauty  ;  hear  it  ye  effulgent  suns 
which  fling  your  splintered  pencils  of  resplendent  light 
throughout  universal  nature  ;  hear  it  ye  angels  of  God  who 
vie  in  glory  around  Heaven's  high  throne  ; — hear  all  of  you 
in  what  will  constitute  man's  real  worth  and  truest  grandeur, 
and  which  will  make  him  a  fit  diadem  to  crown  creation  with  : 
"  Let  us  make  man  " — How  ?  "  In  our  image,  after  our 
likeness."  And  God  took  man  His  own  image,  His  own 
likeness,  man  the  microtheosm,  man  the  little  God,  and 
placed  him  at  the  head  of  creation. 

Made  like  God,  all  the  powers  of  the  normal  man  were  in 
blissful  accord  with  each  other ;  and  himself  a  harp  of  more 
than  a  thousand  strings,  Divinely  keyed  and  tuned  and  struck 
by  heaven's  plectrum,  music  inborn  and  spontaneous  floated 
from  every  trembling  string  in  such  wondrous  octaves  that 
all  heaven's  hosts  shouted  with  rapture.  And  man's  rela- 
tions to  universal  being  were  so  harmoniously  adjusted  that 
every  string  of  unity  in  the  system  of  God  responded  if  but 
one  chord  in  the  harmonious  man  vibrated — and  man's  every 
thought  and  impulse  set  the  harp  agoing.  Subjectively,  man 
was  a  harp  of  symphonious  chords  upon  which  the  slightest 
touch  elicited  the  sweetest  music.  Objectively,  he  was  but 
a  solitary  string  in  the  harp  of  the  universe,  which  discoursed 
its  concenting  part  in  that  universal  diapason  generated  in 


124  SERMONS. 

the  harmonies  involved  in  the  unity  of  things,  which  came 
rolling  in  blended  strains  from  all  creation's  parts  and  poured 
its  thundering  octaves  at  the  foot  of  the  royal  mount  upon 
which  God  sat,  the  inimitably  holy  and  sublimely  glorious 
Archetype.  Made  like  God,  he  was  a  harmony  in  and  of 
himself,  and  also  was  in  harmony  with  God  and  everything 
else — and  in  the  harmonious  adjustment  of  his  subjective 
and  objective  relations  was  found  the  logical  ground  of  his 
happiness.  His  powers  constitutionally  a  harmony,  and 
placed  himself  in  consonance  with  the  constitutional  harmony 
of  the  universe,  he  was  constitutionally  happy.  Brimful  of 
music,  he  was  brimful  of  happiness.  He  was  made  in  a  state 
of  life,  and  life  may  not  be  improperly  defined  in  its  applica- 
tion to  him  then,  as  signifying  happy  existence.  Blessed  State  ! 
Happy  man !     Glory  to  God. 


SERMON   X. 

CHRIST  THE    WAY    (DISCOURSE    II.). 
"  I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth,  and  the  life.'' — John  xiv.  6. 

WHEN  the  great  question  of  death  and  continued  life 
was  presented  to  man's  power  of  choice,  alas  !  he 
chose  Death.     This  involved  : — 

i.  The  destruction  of  the  harmony  of  man's  relations  with 
God.  I  have  shown  you  that  man's  capacity  for  moral 
character  is  threefold ;  expressed  by  the  words  intellect, 
sensibilities,  and  conduct.  I  have  shown  you  that  the  char- 
acter of  spiritual  life  is  also  threefold,  having  a  principle, 
essence,  and  development ;  its  principle  faith  in  God,  its 
essence  love  to  God,  its  development  obedience  to  God.  I 
have  shown  you  that  each  part  of  man's  threefold  capacity 
for  moral  character  has  its  corresponding  and  appropriate 
element  in  the  threefold  nature  of  spiritual  life ;  and  that  be- 
fore man  fell,  being  in  a  state  of  life,  faith  in  God,  the  princi- 
ple of  spiritual  life,  was  lodged  in  his  intellect ;  love  to  God, 
the  essence  of  spiritual  life,  was  lodged  in  his  sensibilities ; 
and  obedience  to  God,  the  development  of  spiritual  life,  was 
lodged  in  his  conduct — the  last  of  which,  at  least,  as  an  ab- 
straction. 

Now,  corresponding  with  man's  threefold  capacity  for 
moral  character,  and  with  the  threefold  nature  of  spiritual 
life,  sin  is  also  threefold  in  its  character — having  a  principle, 
essence,  and  development.  The  principle  of  sin  is  unbelief 
in  God,  the  essence  of  sin  is  enmity  to  God,  the  develop- 


126  SERMONS. 

ment  of  sin  is  disobedience  to  God — each  part  correspond 
ing  respectively  as  the  antipode  of  the  several  parts  respect- 
ively of  spiritual  life.  Now,  any  man  can  see  that  when  sin 
enters  the  soul,  its  principle,  unbelief  in  God,  naturally  takes 
the  place  of  faith  in  God,  the  principle  of  spiritual  life  in  the 
intellect ;  its  essence,  enmity  to  God,  naturally  takes  the 
place  of  love  to  God,  the  essence  of  spiritual  life  in  the  sen- 
sibilities ;  and  its  development,  disobedience  to  God,  natu- 
rally takes  the  place  of  obedience  to  God,  the  development 
of  spiritual  life  in  the  conduct — and  the  man  is  dead.  All 
the  elements  of  spiritual  life  being  superseded  by  their  con- 
traries, as  matter  of  course  the  man  is  spiritually  dead  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  of  cause  and  effect — spiritually  dead,  in- 
dependent of  any  executive  power  to  enforce  the  penalty  of 
his  transgression. 

The  penalty  of  sin  is  no  arbitrary  punishment  inflicted  by 
God  upon  the  sinner  because  the  sinner  sins,  but  is  the  natu- 
ral effect  of  sin  as  its  cause.  Sin,  and  its  penalty,  spiritual 
death,  are  cause  and  effect;  and,  as  such,  are  so  inseparable 
that  the  one  never  did  or  can  exist  without  the  other.  Notice 
how  naturally  sin  produced  death,  in  the  sin  of  the  first  woman. 
When  Eve,  in  answer  to  Satan's  question  whether  God  had 
forbidden  her  and  Adam  to  eat  of  the  fruit  of  all  the  trees  in 
the  garden,  told  Satan  that  God  had  forbidden  them  to  eat 
of  the  fruit  of  one  under  the  penalty  of  death,  he  said  to  Eve, 
"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."  Eve  believed  the  tempter  and 
disbelieved  God — and  unbelief,  the  principle  of  sin,  took  the 
place  of  faith  in  God,  the  principle  of  spiritual  life  in  the  in- 
tellect —  and  thus  far  she  died.  Unbelief,  of  itself,  would 
have  been  followed  by  the  other  elements  of  sin  superseding 
the  remaining  elements  of  spiritual  life,  issuing  in  total  death ; 
but  all  these  steps  are  further  illustrated  in  the  narrative. 

Satan  furthermore  said,  "  Hath  God  said,  ye  shall  not  eat 
of  every  tree  in  the  garden  ?  " — '  the  prohibition  is  unreason- 


CHRIST   THE   WaY— DISCOURSE   II.  127 

able,  God  is  a  tyrant ' — "  for  God  doth  know  that  in  the  day 
ye  eat  thereof,  then  your  eyes  shall  be  opened,  and  ye  shall 
be  as  gods,  knowing  good  and  evil" — 'His  motive  is  a  bad 
one,  He  is  acting  in  bad  faith  in  relation  to  yon,  He  is  en- 
deavoring to  prevent  you  from  working  out  a  destiny  in  keep- 
ing with  your  nature,  of  being  wise  and  great  as  Himself.' 
Again  Eve  believed  the  tempter,  and  enmity  to  the  prescrip- 
tive, tyrannical,  and  unreasonable  God  the  essence  of  sin 
immediately  took  the  place  of  love  to  God,  the  essence  of 
spiritual  life,  in  the  sensibilities — and  she  now  was  nearly 
dead — but  one  thing  more  remained,  and  that  quickly  fol- 
lowed. For  "she  took  of  the  fruit"  of  the  tree,  "and  did 
eat,  and  gave  also  unto  her  husband  with  her  ;  and  he  did 
eat" — and  disobedience  to  God  the  development  of  sin  took 
the  place  of  obedience  to  God  the  development  of  spiritual 
life  in  the  conduct;  and  she  and  Adam  were  dead,  dead, 
dead — constitutionally  dead,  their  children  were  begotten, 
conceived,  and  born  dead,  dead,  dead,  and  we  are  their 
children. 

As  life  is  man's  normal  state,  so  death  is  his  abnormal 
state.  Sin  cut  off  his  access  to'  the  tree  of  life,  and  banished 
him  from  the  garden  of  Eden,  the  type  of  his  innocent  and 
happy  state.  It  severed  the  bond  of  connection  which  bound 
man  to  God,  and  upon  which  bond  his  spiritual  life  depended. 
It  destroyed  the  attractive  power  of  love,  the  centripetal 
force  which  bound  man  to  God  his  centre — to  God  the  source 
of  man's  life,  light,  and  heat — and  his  individuality,  the  cen- 
trifugal force,  no  longer  countervailed  by  love,  flung  him 
from  his  orbit  travelling  out  in  the  hyperborean  realms  of 
night  and  death — a  blasted,  black,  and  frozen  orb,  doomed 
and  damned  to  wander  in  outer  darkness  beyond  order's 
circle  and  heaven's  smile.  Separated  from  God,  the  source 
of  his  life,  man  was  dead  ;  and  moral  decay  commenced  its 
dreadful  ravages,  hellish  vermin  rioted  in  the  moral  rotten- 


128  SERMONS. 

ness  of  man's  ruined  nature,  and  a  fetid  mould  grew  upon 
the  damp  walls  of  God's  deserted  sanctuary  in  the  human 
soul.  Separated  from  God  the  source  of  his  light,  man's 
mental  and  moral  powers  were  darkened.  Created  to  be  a 
receiver  and  not  a  source  of  light,  every  power  of  man's  na- 
ture was  plunged  into  midnight  darkness  by  his  awful  fall, 
incapable  of  consistent,  normal,  and  self-ameliorable  action. 

Indeed,  man  in  losing  light,  lost  his  moral  agency — lost  all 
power  to  choose  right.  In  a  state  of  life,  his  will  voluntarily 
chose  death,  and  as  far  as  his  own  power  was  concerned,  his 
decision  was  final.  Hurled  by  the  active  engines  of  his  own 
individuality  uncountervailed  by  the  attractive  power  of  love, 
beyond  the  luminous  circle  of  God's  influence,  he  moved 
rapidly  out  to  the  sunless  regions  of  barbarism.  Separated 
from  God  the  source  of  his  heat,  upon  whose  potential  and 
dynamic  energies  all  the  phenomena  of  his  spiritual  life  de- 
pended, all  man's  moral  powers  lost  their  tendencies  to  good, 
their  aspirations  for  the  divine,  their  vital  force  and  vigorous 
action  ;  and  as  plants  deprived  of  solar  heat  must  certainly 
die,  so  every  plant  of  virtue,  every  floral  grace,  every  vine 
of  holy  affection  chilled,  withered,  and  died.  Like  the  vege- 
tation of  any  material  orb,  if  the  orb  is  separated  from  its 
sun,  will  freeze  to  its  extinction  ;  so  every  good  plant  in 
human  nature,  when  man  was  separated  from  the  source  of 
spiritual  heat,  froze  to  death  ;  but  the  metaphor  fails  us  fur- 
ther, for  man's  sterility  was  only  confined  to  the  good,  for 
every  abominable  weed  and  bramble  of  inordinate  passion 
and  gigantic  iniquity  grew  and  flourished  in  wild  and  tangled 
exuberance  and  luxuriance. 

Love,  the  bond  of  connection  between  man  and  God  being 
sundered,  an  awful  mutual  enmity  was  engendered  between 
the  two.  Man's  enmity  to  God  was  capable  of  malignancy 
and  hatred,  but  God's  enmity  to  man  was  not.  God  was 
angry  with  the  sinner,  but  He  was  not,  nor  could   He  be, 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE  II.  1 29 

implacable  and  revengeful.  Wrath  in  God  is  not  a  passion. 
God's  enmity  to  the  sinner  was  judicial,  and  judicial  only — 
God  was  man's  enemy.  Man  could  no  longer  commune 
with  God,  but  disinherited  and  disowned,  he  was  driven  out 
of  his  Father's  house,  a  miserable  and  unlovable  orphan. 
Sin  destroyed  the  harmony  of  his  relations  to  God,  but  could 
not  destroy  his  immortality  ;  hence  if  left  to  himself  an  eter- 
nal orphanage — he  could  never  be  a  child  of  God  again  save 
in  the  sense  of  adoption,  and  not  even  in  this  sense  without 
the  severest  legal  process. 

2.  Death  involved  the  destruction  of  the  harmony  of 
man's  relations  with  the  universal  system  of  God.  The  de- 
struction of  his  harmonious  relations  to  God,  and  the  con- 
sequent degradation  of  his  soul,  threw  him  out  of  harmony 
with  the  spiritual  above  him  ;  and  the  deleterious  influence 
of  sin  upon  his  body  threw  him  out  of  harmony  with  the 
material  below  him.  Both  of  these  propositions  are  capable 
of  an  elaboration  and  illustration  which  would  form  a  volume 
as  large  as  the  Bible.  I  dare  not  advance  beyond  the  limits 
of  their  mere  statement. 

3.  Death  involved  the  destruction  of  the  harmony  of  man's 
relations  with  the  laws  of  the  universal  system  of  God.  The 
laws  of  the  several  parts  of  God's  system — the  physical,  spiri- 
tual, and  moral — are  a  unity.  Sin  changing  man's  aspect  to 
the  moral  law,  reducing  him  from  the  harmonious  relations 
of  an  obedient  subject  to  that  of  a  guilty  criminal,  changing 
his  relations  to  the  constitutional  laws  of  spirit  or  mind,  and 
to  the  laws  of  nature,  so  that  he  could  obey  neither,  and  in 
the  effort  to  obey  one  had  to  disobey  another,  and  was  sub- 
ject to  the  curse  of  all — the  laws  of  nature  entailed  suffering, 
labor,  and  death  upon  his  body ;  the  laws  of  spirit  or  mind 
by  the  unnatural  conjunction  of  spiritual  and  physical  causes 
as  related  to  the  complexity  of  man's  constitution,  entailed 
labor,  perplexity,  disappointment,  and  darkness   upon   his 

6* 


130  SERMONS. 

mind  ;  and  the  violation  of  moral  law  entailed  spiritual  death 
upon  his  soul. 

4.  Death  involved  the  destruction  of  the  harmony  of  man 
with  all  his  social  and  domestic  relations.  As  upon  the 
proper  adjustment  of  the  earth's  relations  to  the  sun  depends 
the  harmony  of  its  relations  to  the  other  planets,  so,  upon 
the  proper  adjustment  of  man's  relations  to  God  depends  the 
harmony  of  man's  relations  to  his  fellows.  Upon  man's  love 
to  God,  depends  his  love  for  his  fellows.  And  when  sin 
severed  the  bond  of  love, — the  centripetal  force  which  bound 
man  to  God,  man's  individuality,  the  centrifugal  force,  threw 
him  out  of  harmony  with  God,  snapping  every  bond  of  social 
love,  therefore  destroying  his  harmony  with  his  fellows.  In 
man's  individuality  is  the  root  of  selfishness  ;  and  as  man's  in- 
dividuality, the  centrifugal  force,  was  now  unbalanced  by  love 
to  God,  the  centripetal  force,  his  selfishness  developed  into 
most  inordinate  and  monstrous  proportions.  As  the  root  of 
selfishness  is  in  man's  individuality,  so  the  root  of  every  form 
of  sin  is  found  in  selfishness.  You  see  that  man's  individu- 
ality, the  very  power  which  flung  him  out  of  harmony  with 
God  and  his  fellow,  is  the  causative  fountain  of  all  sin.  Out 
of  harmony  with  God  and  his  fellow  creatures,  he  became 
inordinately  selfish  with  respect  to  both.  Out  of  the  disjunc- 
tive of  man's  social  relations,  consequent  upon  the  disjunc- 
tive of  his  relations  to  High  Heaven,  spring  all  social  evils 
which  have  ever  inflicted  mankind. 

Sin  interfered  seriously  with  man's  domestic  relations.  In 
the  sin  of  the  first  pair,  the  proper  adjustment  of  the  mascu- 
line and  feminine,  the  intellectual  and  emotional,  sides  of 
generic  man,  was  changed  with  respect  to  each  other — Adam 
from  passion  obeyed  the  woman,  thereby  subordinating  the 
intellectual  and  masculine  to  the  feminine  and  emotional. 
This  infringement  upon  God's  arrangement  was  productive 
of  the  greatest  evils.     Woman  immediately  swung  out  of  her 


CHRIST   THE   WAY— DISCOURSE  II.  131 

lelations  from  the  side  of  Adam,  and  vibrating  like  a  pendu- 
lum swept  into  the  regions  of  the  abjectest  slavery.  Cursed 
be  the  man  who  makes  sweet  woman  his  slave.  The  length 
of  the  arc  of  her  circle  was  so  vast  that  ages  elapsed  before 
she  in  turn  swept  back  to  her  proper  place,  but  when  she  did 
come  back  she  paused  not  but  passed  on  beyond  it,  and  be- 
came man's  mistress,  for  whom  many  a  knight  in  medieval 
chivalry  shivered  his  lance,  imperilled  his  life,  and  perpe- 
trated the  darkest  crimes.  Still  the  pendulum  sweeps — and 
the  family  constitution  lying  at  the  foundation  of  all  social, 
municipal,  civic,  and  political  institutions,  the  evils  rising 
from  the  maladjustment  of  man's  domestic  relations  have  as- 
cended into  every  department  of  human  life,  and  like  the  frogs 
of  Egypt  filling  the  land  with  their  foul  slime  and  lugubrious 
croakings. 

5.  Death  involved  the  destruction  of  man's  harmony  in 
and  of  himself  .  Sin  subverted  the  constitutional  order  of 
man's  nature,  elevating  the  material  and  sensual  over  the 
spiritual  and  intellectual.  God  made  man  right  side  up,  sin 
turned  him  wrong  side  up.  As  a  result,  the  will  lost  its 
power  of  control  overman's  passions  and  affections.  God 
never  intended  the  sensive  and  sensual  in  man,  in  society, 
or  nations  to  govern,  but  to  be  governed  by  the  intellectual 
and  rational.  Nothing  can  be  more  destructive  and  ruinous 
than  for  the  sensive  and  sensual  to  usurp  the  governing 
either  in  man's  nature,  in  society,  or  in  nations.  Sin  invert- 
ing the  order  of  man's  original  constitution,  the  sensive  and 
sensual  untrammelled  by  the  legitimate  powers  of  man's  higher 
faculties  immediately  assumed  a  monstrous  development,  and 
ran  riot  over  the  intellectual  and  rational  in  man — and, 
deprived  of  all  intellectual  checks  and  counter-checks,  lost 
harmony  among  themselves,  and  changed  the  soul  into  a  bat- 
tle ground  where  hellish  passions  warred  and  howled  in  in- 
fernal anarchy,  and  demolishing  the  beautiful  temple  of  rea- 


132  SERMONS. 

son,  and  tearing  up  the  very  foundation-stones  of  God's 
sacred  altar  where  in  olden  times  piety  kindled  its  worship 
fires,  and  entombed  will  and  conscience  beneath  the  blasted 
ruins  ;  while  above  the  desolating  rage  of  the  conflict  the 
Devil's  horrid  laugh  could  be  heard  ringing,  fiends  respond- 
ing in  choral  shrieks  as  they  whirled  in  the  dizzy  dance,  their 
fiery  feet  saltating  like  lightning  upon  the  wincing  and  blis- 
tered fibres  of  a  soul  stricken  down  with  convulsive  agony. 

Man  was  now  deprived  of  the  image  of  God,  dismantled 
of  his  nobility,  and  brought  under  the  authority  of  Satan  by 
his  own  dreadful  act — unconditionally  surrendering  to  diabo- 
lical power  without  ever  striking  a  blow  for  God  and  free- 
dom, and  treacherously  giving  up  the  keys  of  the  soul's  cita- 
del placed  in  his  keeping,  and  betraying  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemy  the  garrison  within — and  he  deservedly  fell  under  the 
execrations  of  universal  being.  The  normal  relations  of 
man's  complex  constitution  being  destroyed  by  sin,  and  his 
soul  becoming  a  Pandemonium  for  contending  hobgoblins, 
every  string  of  harmony  within  him  was  thrown  out  of  tune, 
and  stridulous  discords  went  hoarsely  screaming  and  croak- 
ing among  the  dismal  ruins  of  his  fallen  nature — and  owing 
to  man's  relations  to  universal  being,  went  jarring  and  grat- 
ing throughout  the  system  of  God,  disturbing  the  sweet  melo- 
dies of  that  universal  diapason  which  rolls  in  eternal  music 
from  the  circumference  of  created  being  along  all  the  high- 
ways of  sound  up  to  God  the  causative  centre  of  all.  The 
logical  ground  of  man's  happiness  being  found  in  the  proper 
adjustment  of  man's  relations  with  himself  and  universal  be- 
ing, he  was  now  logically  and  constitutionally  unhappy — yes, 
worse ;  logically  and  constitutionally  miserable — yes,  worse 
than  this  ;  logically  and  constitutionally  wretched — unhappy, 
miserable,  wretched. 

To  say  nothing  cf  the  sufferings  of  man's  body,  which  were 
only  consequential  upon  the  great  penalty,  every  chord  of 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   II.  1 33 

harmony  now  sundered  was  bleeding  and  smarting  with  lan- 
cinating pain;  his  mind  was  aching  with  the  memories  of 
lost  blessings  ;  the  nobler  faculties  were  writhing  with  an- 
guish under  the  red-hot  iron  feet  of  a  sensual  despotism. 
Remorse,  whose  serpent  skin  was  but  a  sting,  poison  exud- 
ing from  every  imbricated  scale,  crowded  and  wedged  itself 
in  the  heart,  throbbing  with  the  inexpressible  agonies  of  its 
distention  and  the  contact  of  the  incessantly  stinging  surface 
of  the  horrid  body  of  the  monstrous  beast,  and  from  thence 
protruding,  from  auricle  and  ventricle,  its  hideous  heads, 
gnawed  with  its  fiery  fangs  every  sensitive  cord  of  man's  con- 
scious being.  To  complete  the  fearful  climax  of  his  suffer- 
ings, Despair,  the  odious  bird,  which  had  hovered  in  the 
rear  of  the  fallen  angels  when  cast  out  of  heaven,  and  had 
brooded  over  hell's  damned  for  untold  ages  and  hatched  out 
new  horrors  for  them,  now  ascended  upon  roaring  wings 
from  the  pit,  and  fixed  its  penetrating  talons  in  the  sinner's 
soul,  and  more  terrible  than  the  vultures  which  fed  upon  the 
viscera  and  renascent  viscera  of  Tityus,  commenced  to  glut 
its  craw  with  the  lacerated  fragments  of  man's  ever-reproduc- 
ing vitals,  smotheringly  crushing  him  to  the  earth  and  shut- 
ting out  the  light  of  hopeful  day  with  the  jet-black  plumes 
of  its  circumvesting  pinions.  O,  this  was  death — death  in- 
deed  ! 

Such  was  the  choice  of  our  progenitors,  and  the  state  of 
death  into  which  they  fell  has  descended,  ex  traduce,  to  us. 
But  the  natural  man  now  does  not  exhibit  all  the  phenomena 
of  spiritual  death  as  here  described,  but  does  exhibit  some  of 
the  phenomena  of  spiritual  life  given.  Why  is  this  so  ?  I  an- 
swer :  Man  from  Cain  till  now  has  been  under  a  dispensation 
of  grace,  therefore  subject  to  the  ministrations  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Every  manifestation  of  spiritual  death  wanting  in  his 
character  and  conduct  as  here  described,  is  owing  not  to  him- 
self, but  to  the  restraining  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ;  every 


134  SERMONS. 

manifestation  of  spiritual  life  as  seen  in  his  unconverted  state, 
is  owing  to  the  quickening  of  the  same  Spirit.  So  teaches 
Christ,  when  He  says,  "It  is  the  Spirit  that  quickeneth."  If 
it  had  not  have  been  for  a  dispensation  of  grace,  Adam  and 
Eve  would  not  have  been  permitted  after  they  sinned  to  propa- 
gate their  species.  It  would  have  been  unjust  and  ungood 
in  God  to  have  permitted  us  to  have  been  born  under  the 
dreadful  penalty  of  death  brought  on  us  solely  by  the  act  of 
another,  without  any  remedy  in  our  reach  whereby  we  might 
escape  if  we  chose  to  do  so. 

That  all  of  us  do  suffer  in  a  measure  the  penalty  is  no  re- 
flection upon  God's  Justice  and  Goodness,  for  what  we  do 
suffer,  if  we  comply  with  the  conditions  of  grace,  is  made  to 
entail  upon  us  a  commensurate  personal  good — a  good  be- 
yond any  we  would  have  received  had  we  not  suffered  at  all. 
If  we  receive  our  very  existence  in  virtue  of  a  dispensation 
of  grace,  it  is  presumptive  that  all  the  moral  vital  phenomena 
of  that  existence  is  in  virtue  of  the  same  dispensation,  the 
executive  power  of  which  is  the  Holy  Ghost,  an  agency 
whose  administrations  reach  beyond  the  limits  of  published 
religious  truth  touching  "every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world."  Such  the  state  of  spiritual  death  is  characterized 
by  positive  phenomena,  yet  of  itself  it  is  nothing  but  a  nega- 
tive state — a  negative  state  whose  positive  state  is  life.  With 
respect  to  the  nature  and  manifestations  of  life  I  could  not 
have  made  any  great  error,  for  the  elucidation  is  strictly 
philosophical  and  Scriptural ;  therefore  in  the  elucidation  of 
the  nature  and  manifestations  of  death  I  am  compelled  to 
be  right  in  the  main,  as  they  are  arrived  at  in  virtue  of  an  an- 
tithesis between  a  positive  and  negative. 

I  have  now  presented  you  man  in  a  state  of  life,  as  God 
made  him,  and  in  a  state  of  death  as  sin  made  him.  Christ 
says,  "Jam  the  way,"  and  I  have  presented  you  the  termini 
of  the  way — Death — Life  :  Death,  the  state  into  which  man 


CHRIST   THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   II.  1 35 

fell,  and  from  which  "  as  the  way  "  Christ  must  lead ;  Life, 
as  the  state  from  which  man  fell,  and  to  which  as  "the 
way"  Christ  must  lead.  But  to  open  such  a  way  involved 
the  removal  of  many  and  great  difficulties.  These  difficul- 
ties are  symbolized  by  the  cherubim  and  flaming  sword  which 
were  "  placed  at  the  east  of  the  garden  of  Eden  "  to  guard 
"  the  way  of  the  tree  of  life."  To  the  enumeration  and  na- 
ture of  these  difficulties  I  now  invite  your  attention. 

1.  The  first  difficulty  was  God's  moral  law.  God  could 
not  make  a  moral  being  without  making  a  moral  govern- 
ment ;  He  could  not  make  a  moral  government  without 
moral  law  ;  He  could  not  make  a  moral  being  and  place  him 
outside  of  His  moral  government,  or  beyond  the  obligations 
of  moral  law.  God  made  man  under  moral  law  ;  man  vio- 
lated that  law ;  the  law  could  not  forgive,  or  waive  its  pen- 
alty, without  destroying  itself;  God  could  not  forgive  from 
mere  prerogative ;  the  law  could  not  be  repealed  or  set 
aside;  man  could  not  recall  his  sin;  and  man's  obligations 
to  obey  the  law  being  infinite,  the  guilt  of  his  disobedience 
was  infinite,  and  the  law  demanded  his  infinite  death,  and  he 
being  finite  could  make  no  satisfaction.  Also,  the  moral  law 
being  a  duplicate  of  God's  infinite  holiness  by  transcript, 
nothing  less  than  an  equal  holiness  could  satisfy  it.  Poor 
man  !  his  case  seemed  hopeless. 

2.  The  second  difficulty  was  God's  infinite  Justice.  The 
end  of  Justice  is  to  sustain  the  righteous  law  of  God's  right- 
eous government.  Justice  conforms  in  its  nature  to  every 
righteous  principle  involved  in  heaven's  righteous  govern- 
ment; and  recognizes  the  natural  rights  of  all  parties,  and 
requires  their  strict  conformity  to  their  respective  relations. 
It  recognizes  God's  right  as  a  lawgiver  and  governor,  and 
man's  place  and  duty  as  a  subject.  It  requires  as  a  matter 
of  right  that  the  sinner  should  suffer  in  proportion  to  the 
guilt  of  his  offences,  and  the  guilt  of  man's  offences  being 


I36  SERMONS. 

estimated  from  the  infinite  nature  of  man's  obligations  to 
obey  law,  it  required  in  his  case  death — death  totally,  and 
continued  infinitely. 

3.  The  third  difficulty  was  God's  infinite  Holiness. 
God's  holiness  is  the  totality  of  God's  moral  character.  It 
is  essentially  hostile  to  everything  that  is  wicked — wicked- 
ness is  its  contrary.  Its  hostility  to  wickedness  must  neces- 
sarily be  avowed,  positive,  and  active.  Neutrality,  negative- 
ness,  and  non-action  involve  its  destruction.  Being  infinite, 
its  hostility  must  be  infinitely  avowed,  infinitely  positive,  in- 
finitely active — demanding  infinite  death  upon  the  sinner. 
As  the  sinner  himself  was  but  finite,  and  not  capable  there- 
fore of  suffering  infinite  death  as  to  quantity,  it  demanded 
infinite  death  as  to  duration — unending  spiritual  death. 

4.  The  fourth  difficulty  was  God's  infinite  Majesty.  The 
guilt  of  sin  must  be  in  proportion  to  the  difference  of  the 
majesty  of  nature  between  God  and  man.  The  majesty  of 
God's  nature  is  infinite  ;  the  majesty  of  human  nature  is  but 
finite.  There  can  be  no  proportion  between  the  infinite  and 
finite,  because  the  one  cannot  be  rendered  more  or  less  by 
the  addition  or  subtraction  of  the  other.  Between  the 
majesty  of  God's  nature,  therefore,  and  the  majesty  of  human 
nature,  there  was  an  infinite  difference — and  the  guilt  of 
man's  sin  which  was  a  direct  insult  of  God's  majesty  was  in- 
finite, and  that  majesty  demanded  that  the  penalty  should  be 
infinite. 

5.  The  fifth  difficulty  was  the  existence,  stability,  and 
authority  of  God's  government.  Such  is  the  relation  be- 
tween law  and  government  that  if  the  law  can  be  violated 
with  impunity,  the  authority  of  the  government,  and  as  a 
consequence  its  existence,  is  destroyed.  Penalty  is  a  neces- 
sity to  law  and  government.  If  man,  however,  could  have 
recalled  his  offence,  or  in  some  way  could  have  compensated 
the  government  of  God  by  an  equivalent  for  his  offence,  the 


CHRIST  THE  WAY — DISCOURSE   II.  1 37 

case  would  have  been  different ;    but  as  it  was,  man  was 
doomed. 

6.  The  sixth  difficulty  was  found  in  the  loyalty  and  purity 
of  other  intelligences.  To  save  the  loyalty  and  purity  of  the 
whole  social  confraternity  of  spiritual  beings,  to  give  them  a 
proper  estimate  of  the  importance  of  their  own  personal  loy- 
alty and  purity,  to  sustain  the  authority  of  God  over  them, 
to  make  them  properly  appreciate  the  exceeding  sinfulness 
of  disloyalty  and  impurity,  and  to  deter  them  from  doing  like- 
wise, it  was  necessary  that  disloyal  and  impure  man  should 
be  thrown  out  of  the  great  social  brotherhood,  and  cursed 
with  the  fullest  penalty  of  the  law  he  violated.  The  same 
reason  which  would  throw  him  out  of  the  fraternal  circle 
would  keep  him  out ;  the  same  reason  which  would  require 
the  penalty  once  inflicted  would  require  the  infliction  forever. 

7.  The  seventh  difficulty  was  found  in  the  unity  of  the 
system  of  God.  The  unity  of  God's  system  is  so  perfect  that 
the  introduction  of  a  foreign  body  into  the  system,  or  an  in- 
jury inflicted  in  any  part  of  the  system,  affects  the  whole  sys- 
tem summoning  and  aggregating  in  affecting  the  power  of 
every  part  of  the  system  to  expel  the  foreign  substance,  and 
repair  the  injury  done.  This  is  called  the  recuperative 
power  of  the  system,  and  is  itself  always  the  child  of  a  per- 
fect unity.  Now,  sin,  by  a  figure  of  speech,  is  a  foreign  sub- 
stance in  the  system  of  God,  and  being  itself  the  violation  of 
law  the  basis  of  all  order,  is  essentially  disorganizing  and 
ruinous,  and  because  of  man's  relations  in  the  unity  of  the 
system  it  affected  universal  being  in  its  universal  unity. 
The  recuperative  power  of  the  system  was  immediately  ex- 
erted to  cast  sin  and  the  sinning  subject  out  of  the  system, 
to  heal  the  injuries  inflicted  by  sin's  introduction,  and  resist 
the  disintegrating  and  disorganizing  effects  of  sin,  defending 
and  preserving  the  very  existence  of  the  system  itself.  From 
the  very  laws  of  self-preservation  sinning  man  could  no  more 


138  SERMONS. 

be  permitted  to  remain  in  the  system  of  God,  than  a  planet 
ignoring  the  laws  of  attraction  could  be  permitted  to  remain 
in  the  physical  system.  The  same  law,  also,  which  would 
expel  guilty  man  from  the  system  would  keep  him  out  of  it 
forever. 

8.  The  eighth  difficulty  was  diabolical  power.  Man  volun- 
tarily yielded  to  the  temptations  of  the  Evil  One,  and  God 
oermitted  him,  as  a  part  of  his  punishment,  to  pass  under 
Satan's  power — which  power  Satan  would  not  be  apt  to  sur- 
render without  a  desperate  resistance.  All  the  energies  of 
hell  would  be  exerted  to  defeat  man's  redemption,  and  un- 
dermine the  pillars  and  pull  down  the  arches  of  any  way, 
bridging  the  awful  gorges  of  human  corruption,  and  perdition's 
bottomless  pit,  leading  from  death  to  life. 

I  have  presented  to  you  Death — Life  ;  and  the  difficul- 
ties to  remove  in  the  opening  of  the  way  from  one  state  to 
the  other,  by  which  man  might  escape  from  death  to  life. 
When  life  and  death  were  placed  as  alternatives  before  man's 
power  of  choice,  he  chose  death,  and  God  drove  him  out 
of  the  garden  of  Eden,  and  placed  cherubic  sentinels  and  a 
fiery  sword,  ever-turning  and  ever-flaming,  to  guard  it.  The 
garden  was  representative  of  man's  happy  state,  the  tree  of 
life  of  what  constituted  it  as  such,  and  the  guard  of  the  diffi- 
culties to  a  restoration. 

Man  was  driven  out  of  the  garden — else,  he  never  would 
have  left  it ;  nor  did  he  dare  linger  a  moment  or  take  one 
last  sorrowing  look  at  his  lost  Eden,  and  say  farewell  to  its 
flowers,  and  bowers,  for  the  sword  of  incensed  Justice  was 
burning  and  brandishing  just  behind  him,  and  God's  consum- 
ing wrath  was  coming  upon  his  heels  like  a  tempest.  In 
terror  he  fled  over  the  threshold  of  Paradise  ;  its  portcullis 
coming  down  behind  him  like  lightning,  and  the  appulsion 
of  its  gates  swinging  to,  sounding  like  the  thunder's  quickest 
clap,  bolts  and   bars   sliding  rapidly  in  socket  and  groove 


CHRIST   THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   II.  1 39 

and  changing  into  staples  unbreakable.  In  his  awful  terror 
onward  he  fled,  passing  over  hell's  closed  mouth  as  he  ran, 
which  hell  when  he  had  passed  and  it  was  now  between  him 
and  his  Eden,  opened  its  horrid  jaws,  and  the  waves  of  woe 
surging  up  through  its  infernal  throat  rolled  high  upon  the 
land,  melting  and  washing  the  sands  from  beneath  his  feet, 
and  dashing  their  lurid  spray  into  his  face. 

Man's  spirit  was  not  created  as  a  source  of  light,  but  sim- 
ply as  a  receiver  of  light.  God  was  to  man's  spirit  the  only 
source  of  illumination.  Being  driven  out  of  the  garden,  and 
therefore  away  from  God  as  the  dispenser  of  both  light  and  life, 
man  was  driven  into  the  Night  of  Death.  The  darkness  of 
that  night  was  more  than  the  mere  absence  of  light — it  was  a 
darkness  which  was  of  itself  something.  It  was  a  massive 
darkness  hammered  into  man's  soul  till  it  was  dense  and  pon- 
derable, and  added  to  continually  rose  in  black  embankments 
instinct  with  wrath  to  heaven.  In  this  night  nothing  could 
be  seen  but  the  fiery  circlings  of  the  flaming  sword,  and  the 
dire  flashings  of  the  wings  of  the  cherubic  guard,  sentinelling 
Eden's  bolted  gate  ;  unless  hell's  intervening  gulf  boiling 
like  a  caldron,  and  bubbling  to  the  brim,  occasionally  emit- 
ting a  smoky  blaze  which  threw  a  cadaverous  glare  around. 

But  still  this  light  was  not  the  light  man  lost,  and  could 
no  more  substitute  or  form  a  part  of  the  light  of  man's  spir- 
itual day,  than  the  spontaneous  flame  of  phosphuretted  hydro- 
gen exhaled  from  the  decomposing  bodies  in  the  graves  by 
their  own  corruption  can  substitute  or  be  said  to  form  a  part 
of  the  light  of  the  glorious  sun.  The  light  man  had  when 
driven  out  of  Paradise  was  the  light  of  his  own  corruption 
and  death,  and  that  fearful  illumination  by  which  his  mind 
realized  the  dreadful  significance  of  his  choice,  when,  in  the 
hour  in  the  face  of  life  he  chose  death.  Not  a  solitary  wave  of 
spiritual  life  ruffled  over  the  face  of  the  darkness,  not  a  single 
ray  of  the  light  of  spiritual  day  filtered  through  the  gloom  tc 


140  SERMONS. 

illuminate  his  way.  His  was  the  rayless,  beamless,  starless, 
and  unbroken  night  of  death — an  ocean  night,  full  of  shriek- 
ing fiends,  damned  goblins,  and  chilling  horrors.  Paradise's 
sun  had  set  in  blackest  clouds,  and,  O,  such  a  night  as  that 
was ! 

Man  thought  all  was  lost — and  as  far  as  his  own  power  to 
save  himself  was  concerned  it  was  certainly  so,  he  was  lost, 
and  lost  forever.  But,  lo  !  a  star  was  flung  sparkling  from 
heaven  into  the  very  bosom  of  the  enveloping  gloom,  and 
hung  solitary  and  bright  high  up  in  the  darkness  above  his 
head.  Five  brilliant  points  it  had:  "The  seed — of  the 
woman — shall  bruise — the  serpent's — head."  It  looked  like 
a  quinquangular  block  of  diamond  cut  out  of  heaven's  crown, 
and  suspended  by  a  golden  thread  from  the  throne  of  God, 
was  dropped  into  man's  sunless  firmament  as  the  centre, 
prospectively,  of  all  those  constellations  which  were  to  suc- 
ceed each  other  in  the  darkness,  and  illuminate  that  long, 
long  night  which  was  destined  to  stretch  away  unbroken 
from  Paradise  to  Calvary,  and  during  which  the  earth  sabled 
with  mourning,  and  barefoot,  was  to  tread  in  penance  her 
orbit  four  thousand  times.  And  as  the  ages  accumulated, 
and  the  night  continued,  these  constellations,  star  by  star, 
were  born,  and  types  and  promises  of  various  magnitudes 
glittered  in  the  ebon  vault  above  ;  and  by  and  by  so  great 
their  number  a  sweet  shower  of  twinkling  rays  rained  upon 
the  abodes  of  fallen  men,  and  glistened  and  glanced  upon 
the  world.  Pompous  symbols  also  went  dancing  down  the 
stream  of  time,  and  planted  the  flowers  of  hope  along  both 
of  its  shores. 

But  still  it  was  night,  and  the  night  progressed,  till  far 
down  earth's  history  the  voice  of  an  impatient  world  was 
heard, — "  Watchman,  What  of  the  night  ?  Watchman,  What 
of  the  night  ?  "  A  church  had  already  been  constructed — 
built  of  symbolic  stones,  stuccoed  with  types,  and  delineated 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE  II.  141 

with  emblems.  It  had  its  altar  around  which  its  services 
were  performed  in  splendid  ritual,  and  stately  towers  upon 
which  watchmen  sat  and  timed  the  night,  and  looked  away 
through  prophetic  glasses  to  catch  the  first  glimpse  of  com- 
ing day,  and  announce  it  to  the  world.  So  high  these  tow- 
ers, and  so  powerful  these  glasses,  a  blush  of  day  could  be 
detected  far  below  the  earth's  horizon.  But  the  question  rang 
out  "  Watchman,  What  of  the  night  ?  "  "  Watchman,  What 
of  the  night  ?  "  The  time  of  the  night  the  watchman  gave 
not,  but  simply  answered  :  "  The  morning  cometh,"  adding 
— "  and  also  the  night :  if  ye  will  inquire,  inquire  ye  : 
return,  come."  (Is.  xxi.  11,  12.)  This  watchman  passed 
away,  and  others  took  his  place,  and  for  three  hundred 
years  prophesied  of  the  coming  morning.  But  "  the  darkest 
hour  is  just  before  day,"  is  the  homely  proverb,  and  so  it 
was  in  this  case  :  for  all  the  wratchmen  died  upon  wall  and 
tower,  all  the  prophets  were  buried,  their  glasses  were  bro- 
ken, and  their  harps  unstrung  were  hung  upon  the  altars  of 
a  church  which  now,  itself,  seemed  but  ready  to  crumble 
into  irredeemable  ruins.  For  four  hundred  years  from  the 
death  of  the  last  prophet  man  received  no  revelation  from 
heaven.  Symbols,  types,  and  emblems  seer||ed  to  have  lost 
their  meaning;  the  constellations  of  Heaven's  promises 
dimmed  in  the  deepening  night;  earth  appeared  forsaken 
and  forgotten  ;  the  sleepless  guards  appeared  more  forbid- 
ding and  vigilant,  and  hell-born  Despair  pitched  his  pavil- 
ions upon  the  sterile  and  blasted  fields  of  man's  lost  estate. 

But  man's  extremity  was  God's  opportunity.  Suddenly  a 
beam  of  light  running  up  the  eastern  sk^ culminated  in  a 
bright  morning  star,  hanging  over  a  manger.  A  strange  ex- 
citement thrilled  along  every  fibre  of  universal  being,  and 
electrified  the  universe.  Heaven,  hell,  and  earth  were  ex- 
cited. Some  momentous  event  in  whose  issue  man's  des- 
tiny was  involved  was  abont  to  take  place — some  anthropo- 


142  SERMONS. 

logical  and  ethnological  period  in  the  history  of  man  of  such 
essential  and  vital  significance  to  him  that  the  very  destiny 
of  his  race  depended  upon  the  catastrophe.  Earth,  itself, 
was  about  to  become  a  stage  for  the  enactment  of  some 
fearful  tragedy  in  whose  final  act  man's  eternal  salvation  or 
damnation  was  involved,  and  heaven,  earth,  and  hell  were 
to  be  represented  in  the  dramatis  personam.  The  morning 
star  of  the  world  was  smiling  upon  the  wing  of  the  night ; 
and  angelic  legions  flashing  along  all  the  paths  of  space,  and 
coming  in  from  all  the  universe,  descended,  and  rank  above 
rank,  from  horizon  to  zenith,  crowded  the  firmament,  sus- 
pensive and  anxious  witnesses.  Hell  was  fully  aroused  and 
determined  not  to  relinquish  its  prey ;  and  fallen  angels, 
their  chains  clanking,  ascended  from  perdition's  caves  and 
dungeons,  and  stirred  the  Stygian  deep  between  man  and 
his  lost  Eden,  till  its  black  waves  emitting  sulphurous  flames 
and  evolving  dingy  smoke,  rose  to  the  sky,  and  roared  in 
thunder  around  the  wheels  of  the  chariot  of  the  rising  morn- 
ing, and  essayed  to  wash  out  all  the  stars  of  hope  shining 
above,  and  to  render  impossible  a  way  across  the  angry  bil- 
lows and  foaming  floods  for  man's  escape  from  death.  Poor, 
fallen  man,  with  pale  brow  and  quivering  lip,  gathered  up 
his  children,  and  in  despair  and  terror  waited  what  he  be- 
lieved to  be  his  certain  doom. 

But,  hush  ! — Attention  ! — Lo  !  coming  up  from  Edom  with 
dyed  garments  from  Bozrah,  glorious  in  His  apparel,  travel- 
ling in  the  greatness  of  His  strength,  "  One  mighty  to  Save." 
The  baptismal  waters  of  Jordan  still  glistened  upon  His  locks, 
and  girded  with  Omnipotence,  He  came  upon  the  scene  like 
a  rushing  hurricane,  and  with  one  stroke  of  His  trident,  lev- 
elled the  towering  waves  and  regurgitating  breakers,  with  the 
same  blow  striking  Devil  and  demons  down  to  the  profound- 
est  hell,  and  threw  a  solid  pavement  across  the  Tartarian 
gulf.    Angels  shouted  in  joyous  wonder,  heaven's  dome  rever- 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   II.  143 

berant,  while  onward  the  mighty  Saviour  went.  His  feet  re- 
trod the  way  of  man's  retreat,  and  ascending  to  Paradise  He 
emptied  sacrificial  blood  from  redemption's  urn,  upon  the 
flaming  sword,  extinguished  and  sheathed  it,  removed  the 
guarding  cherubim  and  placed  them  dazzling  with  love,  anti- 
posited  on  the  ends  of  the  Mercy  Seat,  unbarred  and  un- 
bolted the  gate,  opened  the  way  to  the  tree  of  life,  and  turn- 
ing about,  His  life  blood  streaming,  just  before  He  fell  a  slain 
conqueror,  slain  for  us,  and  poured  like  a  flood  of  glory 
down  the  narrow  way  the  central  truth  of  Salvation's  scheme, 

"  I    AM    THE    WAY,    THE    TRUTH,    AND    THE    LIFE."       Now,   the 

darkness  of  four  hundred  centuries  began  to  give  way,  and 
the  stars  which  shone  in  man's  moral  firmament  began  to 
fade  before  the  superior  brightness  of  the  coming  light. 
First,  the  Orient  kissed  by  Royal  Day  blushed  in  maiden 
beauty;  then  a  wave  of  glory  surged  up  against  the  horizon 
and  fiery  lances  thrown  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  new-born 
morning  flashed  up  the  sky  and  unhorsed  Night's  black 
squadrons,  which,  panic-stricken,  fled  to  Limbo  ;  then  the 
sun  of  life  which  had  set  in  clouds  behind  Eden's  guarded 
walls,  arose  and  shot  its  beams  in  level  splendor  over  Cal- 
vary's crest,  glimmering  in  the  blood  of  the  cross,  and  burst 
in  glory  all  over  the  world. 


SERMON   XL 

CHRIST   THE    WAY    (DISCOURSE    III.). 
"  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life."— John  xiv.  6. 

CHRIST  became  "the  way"  from  death  to  life — How? 
By  first  removing  all  difficulties  out  of  the  way. 

i.  The  first  difficulty  to  be  removed  out  of  the  way  was 
God's  moral  latv.  The  notice  of  several  preliminary  truths 
is  here  necessary.  Jesus  Christ,  man's  deliverer,  had  two 
natures.  1  am  not  preaching  upon  the  authenticity  of  the 
Scriptures,  or  upon  the  divinity  and  humanity  of  Christ,  or 
upon  the  union  in  Jesus  of  the  Divine  and  human  in  one  hy- 
postasis or  person  ;  therefore  I  am  authorized  by  the  limita- 
tions of  my  text  and  subject,  and  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
case — as  this  series  of  sermons  is  a  lie  if  the  Scriptures  be 
not  true,  and  redemption  is  impossible  if  Jesus  be  not  in 
some  sense  both  God  and  man — to  waive  for  the  time  the 
task  of  the  elaboration  of  any  philosophical  evidences  which 
might  be  adduced  as  collateral  evidence  of  the  several  truths, 
and  assume  at  once  the  lofty  Bible  ground  that  Jesus  was  a 
perfect  man  with  a  human  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  and  that  in 
Him  dwelt  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily — that  He  was 
man,  that  He  was  God. 

That  this  is  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  with  relation  to  the 
matter — the  whole  Bible — no  one  can  dispute  ;  and  when- 
ever the  opposition  doctrines  are  to  be  sustained,  the  evi- 
dences adduced  in  their  favor  always  rest  upon  a  philosophy 
whose  fundamental  principle  is  that  nothing  can  be  true  un- 


CHRIST  THE   WAY — DISCOURSE   III.  145 

less  it  is  comprehensible  by  the  human  mind — which  phi- 
losophy, if  it  is  true,  there  is  nothing  true.  We  have  the 
advantage  of  Bible  statement,  they,  as  far  as  I  know,  claim  no 
such  advantage — and  if  the  Bible  is  not  true  both  systems  are 
wrong.  We  lay  this  down  as  the  principle  upon  which  we 
proceed,  that  the  work  of  each  nature  was  the  work  of  the 
same  person. 

The  second  preliminary  truth  is  that  Christ  was  man's 
substitute.  This  is  taught  by  plain  statements  both  in  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  :  "  The  Lord  hath  laid  on  him 
the  iniquity  of  us  all."  "  Christ  suffered  for  us."  "  His  own 
self  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree."  "  Christ  suf- 
fered for  sin,  the  just  for  the  unjust."  "  While  we  were  yet 
sinners  Christ  died  for  us.''  "Christ  our  passover  is  sacri- 
ficed for  us."  "  Christ  hath  given  himself  for  us."  "  Christ 
hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law."  "Ye  are  re- 
deemed with  the  precious  blood  of  Christ."  Christ  came  as 
our  substitute,  not  to  redeem  us  from  under  the  obligation 
of  obedience,  for  this  He  could  not  do,  we  sustaining  the  rela- 
tions out  of  which  the  law  arises.  But  He  came  to  suffer  the 
penalty  of  the  law  in  our  place.  But  can  a  substitute  be  ad- 
mitted ?  Yes,  by  the  will  of  the  law-giver.  A  state  can  do 
this  much.  The  admission  of  a  substitute  to  suffer  the  penalty 
of  the  law  in  place  of  the  offender  is,  if  possible,  a  higher  and 
more  convincing  illustration  of  the  unbending  majesty,  un- 
compromising nature,  and  inexorable  dignity  of  the  law,  than 
if  the  offender  has  suffered  the  penalty.  Law  is  not  relaxed 
thereby.  Provided,  however,  that  the  substitution  is  volun- 
tary upon  the  part  of  the  substitute,  and  that  he  himself  is 
not  obnoxious  to  law  ;  and  provided  furthermore  that  he  is 
accepted  by  the  law-giver  and  offender.  The  man  who  ac- 
cepts Christ  is  only  redeemed. 

Now  man  necessarily  being  a  subject  of  God's  moral 
government,  and  necessarily  under  the  obligations  of  moral 
7 


146  SERMONS. 

law,  violated  that  law.  The  law  could  not  forgive  him,  or  waive 
its  penalty,  without  destroying  itself.  God  could  not  forgive 
from  mere  prerogative.  The  law  could  not  be  repealed  or 
set  aside.  Man  could  not  recall  his  offence,  and  his  obliga- 
tions to  obey  the  law  being  infinite  the  guilt  of  his  disobe- 
dience was  infinite,  and  the  law  demanded  in  his  case  infinite 
death,  and  being  but  finite  himself  could  make  no  satisfac- 
tion— and  die  he  must  and  die  he  did.  And  Jesus  came  as 
man's  substitute,  not  to  prevent  man  from  dying,  for  man 
was  already  dead ;  but  to  redeem  man  from  death  into  life, 
cancelling  man's  debt  of  judicial  obligation  by  an  equivalent 
which  afforded  legal  satisfaction,  and  purchasing  man  the 
privilege  of  a  second  birth.  Born  once  and  born  dead,  he 
may  be  born  again  and  born  alive.  "  Ye  must  be  born 
again,"  said  Christ. 

Man's  tripartite  nature,  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  was  in- 
volved in  the  transgression,  and  condemned  under  the  law. 
Jesus,  as  man's  substitute,  must  be  a  perfect  man,  having  a 
tripartite  nature,  body,  soul,  and  spirit ;  for  every  part  of 
man's  nature  must  have  its  suffering  representative  in  the 
nature  of  Christ,  if  man  be  redeemed  ;  and  it  must  be  suffer- 
ing paying  man's  debt  passing  in  a  certain  sense  under  death's 
dread  penalty,  yet  issuing  in  victory  and  life.  Jesus'  suffer- 
ings were  therefore  in  one  sense  pneumatical,  psychical,  and 
corporeal.  In  the  passion  of  Christ  there  were,  three  con- 
tests or  conflicts  in  which  Jesus  suffered,  and  three  victories. 

(1.)  The  life  of  Christ's  spirit  was  made  the  medium  of 
one  attack  by  the  powers  of  darkness  :  —  "  When  Jesus  had 
thus  said,  he  was  troubled  in  spirit,  and  testified,  and  said, 
Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you  that  one  of  you  shall  betray 
me."  The  victory  is  recorded  when  after  Judas  left  the 
room,  "Jesus  said,  Now  is  the  Son  of  man  glorified,  and 
God  is  glorified  in  him."  (2.)  The  life  of  Christ's  soul  was 
made  the  medium   of  the  second   attack  by  the  powers  of 


CHRIST   THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   III.  147 

darkness  in  Gethsemane  ;  — "  My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrow- 
ful, even  unto  death."  The  victory  is  recorded  in  the  words, 
"  O  my  Father,  if  this  cup  may  not  pass  away  from  me,  ex- 
cept I  drink  it,  thy  will  be  done."  (3.)  The  life  of  Christ's 
body  was  made  the  medium  of  the  third  attack  by  the  powers 
of  darkness  on  the  cross.  The  victory  is  recorded  when  the 
angel  "  Said  unto  the  women,  Fear  not  ye :  for  I  know  that 
ye  seek  Jesus,  which  was  crucified.  He  is  not  here  :  for  h^ 
is  risen,  as  he  said." 

But  the  sufferings  of  Jesus  which  redeemed  us  from  under 
the  penalty  of  the  law,  by  satisfying  the  law's  demands,  were 
not  abstract  bodily  sufferings,  but  sufferings  of  the  soul  and 
spirit.  The  sufferings  of  Jesus'  body,  though  severe,  were 
with  relation  to  the  great  fact  only  a  circumstance,  and  with 
relation  to  the  great  fact  the  smallest  of  the  sufferings  of 
Christ.  Man's  soul  had  sinned,  and  man's  spirit  was  dead  ; 
the  sin  of  the  soul  had  to  be  atoned  for,  and  the  spirit  brought 
to  life  again.  There  is  a  difference  between  atonement  and 
redemption.  The  sufferings  and  death  of  man's  body  were 
only  consequential  upon  the  great  penalty,  and  the  sufferings 
and  death  of  Christ's  body  could  have  no  higher  value  with 
reference  to  abstract  atonement.  The  mere  death  of  Jesus' 
body  in  the  abstract  was  not  the  saving  fact  preeminently  in 
redemption  as  a  scheme,  for  Christ  pronounced  the  scheme 
finished  before  His  body  died.  It  is  true  that  Christ's  blood 
is  taught  in  Scripture  to  be  the  procuring  cause  of  man's  re- 
demption, but  it  is  only  so  because  being  the  life  of  the  body 
it  symbolizes  life  in  such  a  sense — that  Jesus  gave  His  life 
for  our  life — life  for  life. 

But  it  was  necessary  to  redemption  that  Jesus'  body  should 
die,  not  only  on  account  of  its  relations  to  His  suffering  mind 
and  spirit  which  necessitated  its  death,  and  the  unity  of 
man's  nature  in  its  triplicity  which  He  came  to  redeem ;  but 
that  he  might  pass  from  the  low  fleshly  life  of  man's  present 


I48  SERMONS. 

condition  in  its  close  connection  with  this  world,  to  the  high, 
spiritual,  and  supernatural  life  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  that 
life's  close  connection  with  God.  "  For  Christ  also  hath 
once  suffered  for  sin,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  he  might 
bring  us  to  God,  being  put  to  death  in  the  flesh,  but  quicken- 
ed by  the  spirit."  Christ's  body,  that  which  expresses  man's 
relations  to  the  earth,  died,  that  His  spirit,  which  expresses 
man's  relations  to  God,  might  move  into  a  higher  life,  includ- 
ing in  itself  spirit,  soul,  and  a  spiritual  body ;  insuring  a  like 
passage  for  man,  and  opening  a  way  from  this  life  into  a 
higher,  or  more  correctly  opening  a  way  from  death  to  life. 
The  sufferings  of  Christ  which  redeemed  us  were  in  the  main 
sufferings  of  the  soul.  The  soul  is  that  middle  part  of  man's 
nature,  intermediate  between  body  and  spirit,  and  expresses 
man's  relations  to  the  great  world,  "  especially  the  world  of 
spirits."  It  is  the  seat  of  man's  ego — his  individuality — it 
is  that  which  he  calls  himself,  and  which  contains  in  itself  a 
complete  definition  of  human  nature.  It  is  the  seat  of  man's 
Spiritual  experience,  the  seat  of  his  affections  and  passions, 
and  the  organ  of  all  emotions  of  pleasure  and  sorrow." 

Now  in  Christ's  soul  was  His  greatest  suffering  and  greatest 
conflict.  In  Gethsemane  He  said,  "  My  soul  is  exceeding 
sorrowful,  even  unto  death  " — sorrow  to  the  greatest  degree, 
a  sorrow  so  great  it  might  kill — a  realization  of  all  the 
anguish  of  conflict  with  violent  death.  The  agony  of  His 
soul  was  the  realization  in  His  experience  of  the  aggregated 
and  unified  power  of  all  the  sins  of  the  world.  It  was  not 
dread  of  agony,  but  an  agony  itself — an  agony  so  great  that 
drops  of  sweat  mixed  with  blood  rolled  off  His  brow.  Agony 
literally  means  a  struggle,  a  contest  for  victory.  The  des- 
perate condition  and  despairing  woe  of  humanity,  with  God's 
judgment  upon  the  race,  fell  upon  the  soul  of  Christ,  and 
was  realized  in  its  inmost  depths.  The  immediate  cause 
of  man's  death  was  his    separation  from   God,  and  Jesus 


CHRIST   THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   III.  149 

realized  all  the  horrors  of  such  a  death,  when  He  cried  "  My 
God,  my  God  !  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  His  whole 
nature  at  that  moment  appeared  to  suffer  at  once,  and  in 
His  own  experience  He  realized  the  death  of  mankind — ■ 
tasting  death  for  every  man.  "  It  is  finished — The  law  was 
satisfied" 

The  law  required  suffering  and  death  ;  Christ  was  man's 
substitute,  and  He  suffered  and  died.  The  law  required 
man's  suffering  and  death  ;  Christ  was  a  man  that  He  might 
be  able  to  suffer  and  die.  The  law  required  suffering  and  death 
equal  to  man's  infinite  guilt  ;  Christ  was  God  as  well  as  man, 
and  His  infinitely  divine  nature  imparted  infinite  merit  to  the 
sufferings  and  death  of  His  human  nature.  Christ  was  man 
that  He  might  suffer  and  die  ;  He  was  God  that  His  suffer- 
ings and  death  might  be  of  infinite  value ;  and  both  natures 
were  so  united  in  one  person  that  one  could  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  work  of  the  other,  and  the  other  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  merits  of  the  one.  Christ  paid  the  whole  debt 
whereby  the  sin  of  Adam  is  entailed  upon  any  man;  hence  man 
is  responsible  only  for  his  individual  sins,  and  Christ  also  paid 
this  debt,  which  payment  is  only  credited  to  you  as  a  person 
when  you  accept  Christ  by  a  faith  in  Him  which  involves 
the  loss  of  yourself,  so  that  the  law  sees  not  you  but  Him. 
Before  the  law,  you  and  Christ  must  be  One,  as  He  and  the 
Father  are  one.  "  Neither  pray  I  for  these  alone,  but  for 
them  also  which  shall  believe  on  me  through  their  word  ;  that 
they  all  may  be  one ;  as  thou,  Father,  art  one  in  me,  and  I 
in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us." 

You  must  be  "in  C/irist."  "In  Christ  shall  all  be  made 
alive."  The  law  must  see  no  one  but  Christ.  He  paid  it 
all.  He  owed  the  law  no  debt.  And  if  He  passed  under 
death's  dreadful  shadow,  and  His  body  indeed  did  die,  it  was 
voluntary.  "  I  lay  down  may  life  for  the  sheep."  "  I  lay 
down  my  life,  that  I   might  take  it  again.     No  man  taketh 


150  SERMONS. 

it  from  me,  but  I  lay  it  down  of  myself.  I  have  power  tc 
lay  it  down,  and  I  have  power  to  take  it  again."  The 
great  act  which  makes  you  and  Christ  one,  is  faith,  the 
principle  of  spiritual  life.  Sufferings  and  death  paid  the 
debt,  but  if  Christ  had  not  passed  from  under  death's  dread- 
ful shadow,  His  sufferings  and  death  would  have  been  of  no 
value  to  us. — "If  Christ  be  not  risen,  then  is  our  preaching 
vain,  and  your  faith  also  vain."  "  For  if,  when  we  were 
enemies,  we  were  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  His 
Son  ;  much  more,  being  reconciled,  we  shall  be  saved  by 
His  life."  Properly  qualified  by  nature  Christ  took  our  place 
under  law  and  cancelled  our  debt  of  judicial  obligation  by 
an  equivalent  which  afforded  legal  satisfaction — removed 
the  moral  law,  the  first  difficulty  in  redemption,  out  of  the 
way — and  God  for  the  sake  of  the  intrinsic  value  of  His  sac- 
rifice, is  competent  to  pardon  sin,  though  infinitely  criminal 
in  its  guilt. 

2.  The  second  difficulty  was  Gods  infinite  Justice.  Christ 
being  incarnate  God,  and  voluntarily  suffering  the  penalty  of 
the  law,  thereby  sustaining  the  authority  of  the  law  and  the 
authority  of  God's  moral  government,  recognizing  God's 
right  as  a  lawgiver  and  governor,  and  accomplishing  His 
whole  work  within  the  compass  of  the  normal  and  unalterable 
relations  of  both  parties,  this  attribute  of  God's  nature  was 
satisfied,  and  the  second  difficulty  was  removed  out  of  the 
way. 

3.  The  third  difficulty  was  God's  infinite  holiness.  The 
immaculate  and  holy  Immanuel  having  suffered  the  penalty 
of  the  law,  exhibited  God's  hatred  to  sin,  and  opening  a 
fountain  to  wash  away  all  moral  pollution,  met  the  demands 
of  the  Divine  holiness.  Indeed,  he  made  accessible  to  man 
the  very  Holy  of  Holies,  by  opening  a  way  whose  name 
itself  was-"  Holiness."  "And  a  highway  shall  be  there,  and 
a  way,  and  it  shall  be  called,  The  way  of  holiness ;  the  unclean 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   III.  151 

shall  not  pass  over  it ;  but  it  shall  be  for  those ;  the  way- 
faring men,  though  fools,  shall  not  err  therein.  No  lion  shall 
be  there,  nor  any  ravenous  beast  shall  go  up  thereon  ;  it  shall 
not  be  found  there ;  but  the  redeemed  shall  walk  there  " 
(Is.  xxxv.  8).  You  see  at  once,  the  third  difficulty  was  re- 
moved out  of  the  way. 

4.  The  fourth  difficulty  was  God's  infinite  majesty.  The 
human  and  Divine  being  united  in  one  person  in  Christ,  and 
Christ  being  man's  representative,  humanity  was  so  elevated 
that  the  dignity  of  the  Divine  nature  was  not  compromised 
in  extending  redemption  to  the  sinner.  Also,  in  virtue  of 
the  incarnation  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  the  blood  symbolizing 
the  life  of  Jesus  being  the  price  paid  for  man's  redemption, 
elevated  man  in  proportion  to  its  own  value,  and  repaired 
the  insulted  dignity  of  God's  nature  by  a  reparation  equal  in 
merits  to  the  character  of  the  dignity  itself.  It  is  clear  that 
through  Christ  the  fourth  difficulty  was  removed  out  of  the 
way. 

5.  The  fifth  difficulty  was  the  existence,  stability,  and  au- 
thority of  God's  government.  The  sufferings  and  death  of 
Christ,  though  expiatory  with  reference  to  God  are  a  punish- 
ment with  reference  to  man,  and  Christ  having  suffered  an 
equivalent  for  this  punishment  in  place  of  the  sinner,  and 
adequately  compensating  God's  government  by  an  equivalent 
for  man's  offence,  rendering  the  exercise  of  pardon  consistent 
with  the  government,  fully  maintained  the  existence,  stability, 
and  authority  of  God's  government;  thus  removing  the  fifth 
difficulty  out  of  the  way. 

6.  The  sixth  difficulty  was  found  in  the  loyalty  and  purity 
of  other  intelligences.  Christ  being  the  Son  of  God,  His 
death  was  a  greater  manifestation  of  the  righteousness  of  God, 
the  integrity  of  God's  government,  the  certainty  that  sin 
could  not  be  committed  with  impunity,  and  God's  hatred  to 
sin,  than  if  man  had  been  punished  himself,  therefore  nothing 


1$2  SERMONS. 

would  more  likely  deter  the  universe  from  committing  3 
like  offence.  And  man's  recovery  of  his  place  in  the  great 
social  confraternity  of  spiritual  beings,  made  in  redemption 
to  depend  upon  the  absolute  condition  of  personal  purity,  he 
could  not  therefore  injure  the  character  of  others  by  contact 
with  them.  Therefore,  the  sixth  difficulty,  as  militating 
against  man's  redemption  was  removed  out  of  the  way. 

7.  The  seventh  difficulty  was  found  in  the  unity  of  the 
system  of  God.  The  system  of  God  is  a  unity  in  all  its 
parts — physical,  spiritual,  and  moral.  Sin  by  a  figure  of 
speech  is  a  foreign  substance  in  this  unity,  and  it  and  the 
sinner  must  be  cast  out.  Christ  came  as  an  embodiment  of 
the  recuperative  power  of  the  system,  and  by  converting 
man,  converting  him  from  a  foreign  body  to  a  homogeneous 
one — filling  him  with  love.  Thus  Christ  is  eliminating  sin — 
the  foreign  element  in  the  system — and  gradually  healing 
the  injuries  done  by  sin  to  the  system.  Therefore,  the  sev- 
enth difficulty,  found  in  the  unity  of  the  system  of  God, 
was  removed  out  of  the  way  of  man's  redemption. 

8.  The  eighth  difficulty  was  diabolical  power.  Christ 
satisfied  the  law  under  which  as  a  part  of  the  penalty  man 
was  held  in  captivity  under  Satan,  and  was  in  man's  stead 
bruised  in  a  penal  sense  by  diabolical  power,  afterwards 
bruising  the  head  of  that  power,  subjugating  it,  and  chaining 
it  to  the  wrheels  of  the  chariot  of  redemption  ;  and  diabolical 
power,  the  eighth  difficulty  was  removed  out  of  the  way. 

Having  removed  all  the  difficulties  out  of  the  way,  Christ 
laid  the  groundwork  for  man's  redemption  from  death  into 
life.  (1)  Armed  with  his  Divine  credentials,  Christ  descended 
among  men,  as  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  and  by  His  life, 
works,  and  sufferings,  death,  and  resurrection,  exhibited  in 
the  very  presence  of  humanity  His  ability  and  willingness  to 
save  sinners.  Thus  according  to  the  laws  of  the  human 
mind,  governing  the  mind  with  relation  to  the  mind's  beliefs, 


CHRIST  THE   WAY — DISCOURSE   III.  I  53 

and  in  which  mind  faith  in  God,  the  principle  of  spiritual 
life,  must  be  lodged,  made  the  mind's  exercise  of  such  faith 
possible,  laying  down  the  exercise  of  such  faith  as  the  first, 
unalterable,  and  philosophic  condition  of  man's  personal 
salvation.  So  plainly  did  Christ  lay  down  grounds  for  the 
possibility  of  the  exercise  of  faith  in  God,  the  principle  of 
spiritual  life,  that  unbelief,  the  principle  of  sin,  ever  after- 
wards was  voluntary  upon  the  part  of  the  sinner. 

(2)  The  touching  and  fascinating  sweetness  of  the  char- 
acter and  life  of  the  God-man,  connected  with  the  benevo- 
lence of  his  acts,  and  the  fact  that  his  incarnation,  humilia- 
tion, sufferings,  and  death  were  an  expression  of  God's  love 
for  sinners,  made  love  for  God  the  essence  of  spiritual  life 
possible  upon  the  part  of  man.  And  so  well  did  Christ  do 
His  work  in  this  respect,  that  enmity  to  so  loving  a  God,  the 
essence  of  sin.  ever  afterwards  was  voluntary  upon  the  part 
of  the  sinner.  If  God's  love  for  man  had  not  been  mani- 
fested before  man's  face  in  an  incarnation,  the  sinner  could 
never  have  loved  God. 

(3)  Christ,  by  laying  the  groundwork  for  faith  and  love, 
laid  the  groundwork  for  obedience  to  God  the  development 
of  spiritual  life,  as  well  as  exemplifying  the  possibility  of 
obedience,  under  certain  conditions,  upon  the  part  of  man. 
Christ  in  his  life,  sufferings,  and  death,  having  laid  the  ground- 
work of  man's  resurrection  from  death  to  life,  making  faith 
in  God  the  principle  of  spiritual  life,  love  to  God  the  es- 
sence of  spiritual  life,  and  obedience  to  God  the  development 
of  spiritual  life,  possible  upon  the  part  of  man,  passed  from 
death  into  life  Himself,  leaving  open  the  doors  of  death's 
dungeons  behind  Him  that  the  race  might  follow ;  and 
living  again  Himself,  the  work  His  death  left  in  the  ab- 
stract, became  a  concrete  dispensation  of  power  to  every 
man  who  believed.  Faith  is  the  hand  of  the  sinner  which 
lays  hold  upon  a  rising  Saviour,  and  if  its  grasp  breaks  not 

7* 


154  SERMONS. 

when  the  Saviour  lives  the  sinner  lives  too.  And  as  Jesus 
was  dead,  or  passed  under  death's  dark  shadow,  and  is  alive 
again,  and  though  once  dead  is  now  alive  forevermore,  hold- 
ing the  keys  of  hell  and  death  in  His  hands,  so  the  man 
who  trusteth  Jesus,  and  continueth  trusting  Him  will  never 
die.  Then  is  not  Jesus  the  life?  Eternal  life?  When 
Jesus  died  redemption's  saving  power  was  potential — life 
for  sinners  was  possible ;  when  Jesus  rose  into  a  new  and 
higher  life,  death's  conqueror,  redemption's  saving  power 
became  dynamic — life  for  sinners  became  an  actuality.  He 
paid  our  debt  in  death,  but  saves  us  by  his  life — "  I  am  the 
life." 

As  some  men  are  saved  and  some  are  lost,  however,  to 
treat  of  man's  redemption  individually  would  so  complicate 
my  theme,  that  this  sermon  would  almost  be  unending.  I 
therefore  treat  Him  as  a  race  including  only  God's  elect,  or 
those  who  choose  life,  as  the  grand  scheme  prospectively 
sweeps  onward.  As  a  race,  like  an  orb,  man  passed  from 
God  beyond  the  boundaries  of  normal  being  into  the  im- 
measurable and  starless  realms  of  night,  to  wander  in  tin- 
orbed,  erratic,  and  lawless  anarchy,  dashing  against  demoni- 
acal orbs  tenanting  the  darkness,  then  rebounding  hasting 
away  in  reflexive  motion  through  the  pathless  abysm,  to  be 
jarred,  battered,  misshaped,  and  fractured  with  the  appul- 
sions  of  other  collisions.  Sin  had  severed  the  bond  of  con- 
nection between  man  and  God,  upon' which  man's  spiritual 
life  depended.  Sin  had  severed  the  attractive  power  of 
love,  the  centripetal  force  which  bound  man  to  God,  and 
his  lawless  motion  was  now  the  effect  of  man's  individuality, 
the  uncountervailed  centrifugal  force. 

Christ,  the  gift  of  the  Father's  love,  actuated  by  love  Him- 
self, and  acting  within  the  philosophic  compass  of  love,  the 
recuperative  power  of  God's  moral  system,  laid  aside  His 
crown,   divested  himself  of  His  glory,  and  upon  wings  of 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE  III.  T55 

mercy  flew  from  the  throne  of  heaven  into  the  darkness, 
overtaking  the  wandering  orb,  and  fastened  again  the  cord 
of  love — so  means  the  word  religion — re-ligo.  He  tied  again 
the  cord  of  love  and  summoning  into  dynamic  manifestation 
the  potential  energies  of  universal  being  to  assist  in  the 
mighty  work,  is  gradually  bringing  man  rolling  in  reclaimed 
beauty  back  to  his  native  orbit,  readjusting  the  harmony  of 
his  relations  to  God,  to  the  system  of  God,  to  the  laws  of  the 
system,  the  harmony  of  his  own  social  and  domestic  rela- 
tions, and  the  harmony  of  his  own  constitution  and  powers. 

Christ  accomplished  man's  redemption  without  changing 
a  normal  principle  or  law  of  universal  being.  He  became, 
therefore,  in  the  highest  sense,  "The  Truth."  Truth  is 
the  duplication  of  facts.  It  is  the  philosophic  condition  of 
facts,  hence  in  the  concrete,  it  is,  whatever  is.  It  is  the  phil- 
osophic condition  of  facts  abstracted.  And  as  God's  uni- 
versal system  of  facts  is  a  unity,  so  truth  is  the  simplest  and 
grandest  of  all  unities.  Christ  said  of  himself,  "  I  am  .... 
the  truth."  He  did  not  make  such  an  announcement  with 
reference  to  his  own  abstract  existence  and  personality.  In 
this  sense  it  was  no  more  true  of  him  than  it  is  of  us.  He 
announced  himself  as  "  the  truth  "  with  reference  to  the  fact 
as  the  way  from  death  to  life  he  conformed  in  nature  and 
work,  and  every  other  way,  to  every  fact  involved  directly  or 
indirectly,  wherever  found,  in  the  origination,  constitution, 
execution,  establishment,  and  perfection  of  the  scheme  of 
man's  redemption. 

Man's  intellectual,  moral,  and  physical  natures,  with  all 
their  respective  peculiarities,  redundancies,  and  effects,  in- 
cluding every  fact  in  his  condition  ;  considered  with  refer- 
ence to  the  relations  he  sustained  to  every  being,  thing,  and 
principle  in  the  universe;  with  reference  to  the  claims  of 
every  extrinsic  thing  ;  with  reference  to  all  his  obligations, 
aims,  and  ends — constituted  a  system  of  facts.     And  Christ 


156  SERMONS. 

without  altering  one  of  them  as  a  prior  condition  to  the 
commencement  of  his  work,  constructed  a  way  from  death 
to  life,  conforming  in  the  construction  to  every  especial  one 
of  the  facts,  as  truth  must  always  conform  to  the  fact  of 
which  it  is  the  duplicate,  every  one  of  the  facts  included  in 
the  construction  as  a  fundamental  and  archetypical  exigency 
to  be  adapted  in  the  construction,  and  provided  for  in  the 
construction.  Christ  being  "the  way"  to  life,  and  as  such 
"  the  truth,"  is  necessarily  the  only  way.  There  can  be  but 
one  exact  representation  of  anything.  The  number  of  rep- 
resentations may  be  multiplied,  but  if  they  are  the  truth  they 
are  exact  and  correct  as  to  the  fact,  hence  one  and  the  same. 
Not  so 'with  error,  never  correct,  it  may  be  wrong  in  many 
ways,  and  every  way  essentially  different,  and  be  error  still. 
In  fact,  such  is  characteristic  of  all  error.  There  is  but  one 
true  religion  in  the  world,  yet  there  are  a  thousand  heresies. 
Christ  as  "the  way"  being  "  the  truth,"  is  therefore  the  only 
way.  "No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me." 
Christ  is  "the  way" — Glorious  doctrine!  Christ  is  "the 
truth  " — exemplified,  demonstrated,  adorned,  omnipotent,  ir- 
resistible, unconquerable,  unalterable,  incarnated  truth.  But 
grander,  grandest  of  all,  He  is  the  Life. 

He  is  "  the  life."  What  was  the  chief  glory  of  Paradise  ? 
What  did  man  lose,  and  by  losing  it  lost  his  all  ?  What 
was  threatened  with  destruction  in  case  he  sinned  ?  What 
did  he  desire  most  ?  Life  !  Life  !  He  ran  weeping  through 
the  earth  crying  Life  !  Life  !  But  there  was  no  life.  Jes.is 
came  upon  the  scene,  and  announced  "  I  am  the  life."  The 
first  convert  shouted  "  Eureka."  Jesus  came  as  the  truthful 
way,  for  us,  to  life.  It  follows  that  we  must  have  that  life, 
that  generic  fact,  the  truth  we  lost.  Life  is  the  essential  and. 
vital  form  of  all  intelligent  existence.  It  is  the  total  of  all 
rewards  and  its  destruction  the  sum  of  all  punishments.  If 
Jesus  is  not  the  life,  he  is  not  the  way,  nor  truth.     If  he  is 


CHRIST  THE   WAY— DISCOURSE   III.  1 57 

not  the  life,  he  is  nothing.  When  we  lost  life,  we  lost  all  ; 
and  if  we  do  not  gain  it  back,  we  gain  nothing.  Life  was 
the  whole  of  Paradise — the  thing  which  was  guarded.  If  the 
way  lead  to  paradise,  it  must  lead  to  life  ;  if  the  guards  are 
removed  at  all,  it  must  be  from  around  the  tree  of  life.  The 
way  is  opened,  the  guards  removed,  and  its  fruit  is  ripening 
for  the  race.  When  a  man  is  converted  he  has  regained  his 
Paradise.  But  Jesus  stopt  not  in  the  world's  Eden,  but  made 
an  eternal  breach  in  the  walls  on  the  other  side,  and  laying 
his  cross  for  a  foundation  sill,  threw  up  a  splendid  way  to 
heaven  ;  and  from  heaven's  throne  says  :  "Come  up  higher." 
— "  Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a  crown 
of  life." 

Saint  John  describes  the  future  abode  of  the  righteous  un- 
der the  figure  of  a  magnificent  city.  This  city  was  made  of 
gold,  was  fifteen  hundred  miles  in  circumference,  three  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  miles  high,  had  twelve  gates,  each 
made  of  a  single  pearl,  and  was  surrounded  with  a  wall  of 
polished  jasper  two  hundred  and  sixteen  feet  high.  This 
city  rested  on  twelve  foundations  of  precious  stones,  disposed 
in  layers  one  above  the  other,  each  foundation  composed  of 
a  single  gem.  The  city  was  paved  with  solid  gold,  and 
located  in  a  new  earth.  In  this  city  the  most  splendid  of  all 
Bible  symbols,  was  the  throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb,  from 
which,  says  John,  proceeded  the  river  of  life.  Probably,  be- 
neath the  glorious  throne  were  caverns  walled  and  arched 
with  diamonds  from  whose  glittering  pendants  percolating 
nectar  dropped,  from  which  the  fountains  of  living  waters 
burst  in  a  thousand  limpid  springs,  and  uniting,  like  a  stream 
of  liquid  crystal  embanked  in  emerald,  flowed  through  the 
city,  and  sweeping  beyond  the  walls  rolled  all  round  the 
sealess  and  renovated  world. 

In  this  city,  symbolizing  the  heavenly  state  made  accessi- 
ble to  man  by  Christ  "  the  way,"  was  also  the  tree  of  life, 


158  SERMONS. 

not  a  single  tree,  but  they  grew  along  all  the  streets  and 
threw  their  cooling  shades  upon  every  pavement  along 
which  the  citizens  of  heaven's  metropolis,  affranchised,  and 
redeemed,  ever  passed,  and  repassed  in  beautiful  promenade  ; 
and  lined  also  both  banks  of  the  river  of  life,  their  giant 
trunks  upreared  above  palatial  hills,  and  towers  gleaming  in 
silvery  sheen,  and  spires  glittering  with  diamond  frost,  and 
domes  resplendent  and  spangled  with  gems.  These  trees 
were  roofed  with  fadeless  verdure,  and  their  branches,  off- 
shooting  and- wide-spreading,  were  laden  with  immortal  fruit, 
monthly  ripening,  free  to  pluck,  and  taste,  and  eat,  and 
pluck,  and  taste,  and  eat  forever,  no  sword  guarding  or 
cherubim  forbidding.  There  it  is  life,  and  life  forever — 
eternal  life.  Life  is  glorious,  though  it  be  but  for  a  mo- 
ment— but  who  can  measure,  fathom,  or  weigh  the  period 
of  its  duration  ?  Take  your  rule — Drop  your  plummet — 
Lift  your  scales — It  is  eternal  lifej  Go  to  eternity's  chro- 
nometer and  mark  the  flight  of  cycles  infinite,  and  count  the 
vibrations  of  its  pendulum  ever  going  and  coming  ;  count 
the  strokes  upon  its  sounding  bell,  dying  away  in  music  amid 
the  flowery  hills  of  heaven,  each  repeating  to  its  last  mur- 
mur, "  Forever  !  Forever  !  "  Chronicler  of  circling  cycles, 
repeat  the  period  of  your  record — "forever  !  "  "  forever  !  " 
— Eternity  !  Eternity  !  Life  is  heaven,  and  eternity  the 
period  of  its  enjoyment.  Eternal  Life.  Eternal  life  is 
heaven  epitomized,  and  Jesus  is  the  way  to  it.  Let  us  go  I 
O,  let  us  go  ! 


if 


SERMON   XII. 

ezekiel's  vision  (discourse  1.). 
Dispensations  of  Divine  Providence. 

"Then  did  the  cherubims  lift  up  their  wings,  and  the  wheels  beside 
them  ;  and  the  glory  of  the  God  of  Israel  was  over  them  above." —  Eze- 
KIEL  xi.  22. 

SPEAKING  of  the  wheels,  the  prophet  says:  ''Their 
appearance  ....  and  their  work  was  like  unto  the 
color  of  a  beryl "  — that  is,  a  beautiful  blue  like  the  firma- 
ment. "  And  they  had  one  likeness  ;  and  their  appearance 
and  their  work  was  as  it  were  a  wheel  in  the  middle  of  a  wheel. 
They  went  upon  their  four  sides  :  and  they  turned  as  they 
went  ....  they  went  straight  forward.     Whither  the  spirit 

was  to  go  they  went As  for  their  rings  they  were  so 

high  that  they  were  dreadful  ;  and  the  rings  were  full  of  eyes 
round  about  t.hem  four."  These  symbolized  the  Dispensa- 
tions of  Providence. 

The  very  idea  of  wheels  revolving  suggests  revolution  and 
change.  Their  connection  with  the  chariot  of  Providence, 
shows  that  in  the  revolutions  in  the  sentiments  and  habits  of 
men.  in  the  revolutions  effected  by  education  and  civiliza- 
tion, in  the  revolutions  of  kingdoms  and  governments,  God 
is  carrying  on  His  work.  Revolutions  are  not  the  causes  of 
progress,  as  Mr.  Watson  intimates  in  his  sermon  upon  this 
part  of  the  vision,  but  the  result.  The  idea  of  revolutions  as 
the  cause  of  progress,  evolved  from  the  idea  of  revolving 
wheels,  is  only  a  beautiful  and  impressive  metonymy,  where 


l6o  SERMONS. 

the  effect  is  put  for  the  cause.  Revolutions  are  but  epochs 
in  the  developments  of  progress.  They  are  but  notches 
progress  cuts  in  the  history  of  the  world's  emancipation  from 
ignorance,  sin,  and  imperfection.  A  people  are  rude  and 
illiterate  ;  a  certain  form  of  government  is  adapted  to  them 
in  that  state  ;  and  when  the  people  in  time  become  polished 
and  learned  their  government  changes  with  their  advance- 
ment in  civilization.  The  constitution  of  the  government 
of  Great  Britain  is  but  a  history  of  its  progress  from  bar- 
barism to  its  present  national  eminence,  chaptered  by  revo- 
lutions. Revolutions  are  indications  of  the  spirit  of  prog- 
ress, and  in  these  revolutions  the  wheels  of  the  chariot  of 
God's  Providence,  roll  grandly. 

In  the  revolutions  of  states  by  war,  are  seen  the  wheels. 
War  originates  in  the  selfishness  and  inharmony  of  man's 
fallen  nature.  Its  ultimate  cause,  within  the  range  of  created 
things,  is  Satan,  the  Great  Adversary.  In  the  meantime, 
men  make  war,  and  yet  God  carries  on  His  work.  War  is 
the  necessary  expression  of  the  selfishness  and  inharmony 
of  man's  nature,  but  as  light  is  increasing,  even  war  works 
for  the  general  good  of  humanity.  It  strikes  down  all  civil- 
izations which  have  crystallized  to  suit  the  degree  of  intelli- 
gence and  light  of  a  past  age,  and  which  prevent  all  increase, 
and  smother  down  all  developments  towards  a  higher  intelli- 
gence, and  a  higher  and  brighter  light.  War  prevents  a  civil- 
ization in  a  low  form  from  crystallizing,  and  concreting  itself 
so  fixedly,  that  all  advancement  would  be  impossible. 

Licentiousness,  luxury,  wealth,  indeed,  everything  which 
prevents  man's  mental  and  moral  progress,  naturally  destroy 
the  conservative  and  formative  basis  of  governments  and 
nations,  and  the  elements  composing  them  lose  their  affinity 
fcr  each  other  ;  and  from  a  homogeneousness,  become  hetero- 
geneous, and  by  impingement  upon  each  other  produce  war. 
The  war,  itself,  however,  eliminates  the  causes  which  pro- 


DISPENSATIONS   OF  DIVINE   PROVIDENCE.       l6l 

duced  it,  and  the  elements  again  harmonize  upon  the  same 
basis,  or  another ;  but  all  training  the  elements  for  an  eter 
nal  union  after  awhile  in  a  Theocracy.  It  does  not  follow, 
however,  that  the  success  of  armies  in  battle  show  what,  from 
a  human  standpoint,  may  be  regarded  as  the  right  side  in 
the  controversy.  As  far  as  human  fights  of  property  and 
person  are  concerned,  they  may  not  amount  to  much  in 
God's  disposition  of  the  affairs  of  mankind — as  a  rule.  God 
has  an  especial  administration  with  every  man,  and  every 
man  is  the  subject  of  special  providences.  None  but  the 
Christian  has  a  promise  to  this  effect,  in  the  Bible,  and  then 
it  is  contingent  upon  prayer,  faith,  or  some  act  of  Christian- 
ity. Special  providences  establish  no  general  rule,  which 
enables  us  in  the  discussion  of  the  general  doctiine  of  provi- 
dence. 

As  to  the  question  of  natural  personal  rights,  I  have  nc 
rule.  I  feel,  and  the  Decalogue  teaches  me,  I  have  some 
rights  with  relation  to  other  men,  which  they  ought  to  re- 
spect. As  to  a  natural  inherent  personal  right,  life  is  so 
much  of  a  compromise  with  the  rights  of  other  men,  and  my 
relations  to  God  in  His  relations  to  other  men,  that  I  do  not 
know  as  I  have  any  such  rights.  I  intend  to  let  God  take 
care  of  that.  Again,  I  know  that  intelligence  and  civiliza- 
tion ought  to  govern  ignorance  and  barbarism,  and  intelli- 
gence and  civilization  are  so  often  might,  and  might  so  often 
appears  to  be  right,  that  my  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  in  these 
regards  get  confused ;  and  again  I  have  to  leave  this  matter 
to  God's  providence  and  His  decision.  One  thing,  I  have 
always  been  able  to  learn  what  my  duty  was  in  every  condi- 
tion with  reference  to  God  and  man,  and  I  try  to  do  that. 

As  to  the  rights  of  nations,  we  still  have  no  ultimate,  abso- 
lute, generic,  and  reliable  rule.  It  does  seem  that  Russia 
ought  not  to  be  prohibited  from  having  more  than  ten  small 
steamers  in  the  Black  Sea;  from  entering  the  Dardanelles 


l62  SERMONS. 

and  the  Bosphorus  from  the  Black  Sea ;  and  from  the  privi- 
lege of  maintaining  on  the  Black  Sea  coast  any  military  or 
marine  arsenal.  It  does  seem  that  the  articles  of  the  treaty 
of  1856,  forbidding  these,  ought  to  be  modified  or  abolished. 
Yet  if  it  is  supposed  by  England  that  Russia,  if  these  articles 
of  the  treaty  are  done  away  with,  will  make  the  Black  Sea 
a  base  for  military  operations  upon  Turkey,  and  ultimately 
upon  England-s  possessions  in  Asia,  it  does  seem  that  Eng- 
land does  right  in  insisting  upon  maintaining  the  existing 
treaty.  It  seems  right  in  Russia  to  resist  the  treaty  :  it 
seems  right  in  England  to  defend  the  treaty.  Which  is  right, 
and  which  is  wrong  ?  If  it  comes  to  war,  upon  which  side  is 
God? 

I  have  no  doubt  the  clergy  of  both  countries  can  prove  to 
the  satisfaction  of  their  fellow-countrymen  that  God  is  upon 
both  sides — that  God  can  be  divided  against  Himself.  I 
wish  that  there  was  enough  spiritually  in  the  church  to  put 
every  preacher  out  of  the  church  who  goes  beyond  the  record, 
and  retails  in  God's  market  his  own  miserable  and  cracked 
pottery.  I  suppose  if  I  was  a  politician  I  would  do,  like 
most  politicians  do,  take  the  side  that  paid  me  and  my  party 
best.  W-hat  would  it  matter  if  fifty  thousand  widows,  and 
one-half  of  a  million  orphans  were  made — my  pockets  would 
be  benefited,  and  my  political  party  would  be  maintained  in 
power  in  the  government.  I  know,  if  I  was  a  politician  I 
woul'd  do  this  way — the  amount  of  apostasy  necessary  to  turn 
a  minister  into  a  politician  would  fully  warrant  the  other. 

We  cannot  decide  upon  the  merits  of  such  controversies. 
Men  must  do  the  best  they  can.  There  is  at  last  a  God  who 
governs,  and  Christianity  and  civilization  are  saved  from  the 
power  and  numbers  of  Infidelity  and  Paganism,  by  measures 
and  influences  unseen  to  us ;  and  the  general  history  of  the 
.vorld  containing  the  history  of  the  contest  between  parties, 
which  have  eventuated  in  the  ultimate  success  of  the  good 


DISPENSATIONS   OF   DIVINE   PROVIDENCE.       163 

over  the  bad,  is  an  evidence  of  the  truth  of  the  Divine  Provi- 
dence. There  is  a  great  conservative  wheel  in  the  machin- 
ery of  the  world,  which,  though  unseen,  controls  the  wheels 
that  are  seen,  and  whose  control  is  seldom  if  ever  apparent 
to  the  generation  living  at  the  time  the  machinery  in  ques- 
tion moves. 

Present  success  is  no  touchstone  to  determine  which  nation 
is  right  in  battle.  The  first  Napoleon  said  God  was  on  the 
side  of  the  best  guns.  This  was  a  very  foolish  remark,  and 
was  intended  to  mean  that  God  had  nothing  to  do  with  wars 
at  all,  or  battles  among  men.  Yet  Napoleon  was  wrong  and 
he  was  right.  He  was  wrong  if  he  meant  to  say  that  God 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  success  of  armies.  All  the  ele- 
ments which  enter  into  the  morale  of  an  army  may  be  vital 
and  effective  by  supernatural  influences  from  that  end  of  the 
chain  of  causes  which  rises  into  the  invisible.  The  great 
supernatural  world  is  connected  in  close  unity  with  the  natu- 
ral world,  and  has  in  itself  all  first  causes.  Second  causes 
are  only  found  in  the  material  and  visible.  It  may  be  a 
nation  has  to  place  itself  in  certain  attitudes  to  the  super- 
natural, as  a  condition  to  be  operated  upon  by  the  supernat- 
ural. God's  government  is  a  government  of  moral  agents. 
The  point  of  connection  may  be  the  human  mind.  It  is 
certain,  in  war,  the  wheels  of  God's  chariot  roll  dreadfully ; 
God  holding  the  reins  in  His  hands,  and  preserving  the  in- 
tegrity of  His  plans  in  spite  of  the  war,  or  facilitating  their 
development  by  the  war,  and  sometimes  it  makes  no  differ- 
ence to  the  success  of  God's  plans  which  side  is  victorious  in 
the  war.  Sometimes  it  does,  and  God  has  to  do  with  wars 
as  it  suits  His  purposes.  Don't  force  Him  to  act  by  an  iron 
rule.  At  one  time  He  may,  at  another  He  may  not.  War 
affects  mankind  too  seriously  to  rule  God  out  of  it,  but  pray 
let  him  govern,  and  do  not  make  Him  the  cause. 

Napoleon  was  wrong  if  he  meant  to  say  God  was  on  the 


1 64  SERMONS. 

side  of  success.  Napoleon  was  usually  victorious,  and  he 
could  boast  and  defy  God.  He  would  have  done  better  to 
have  waited  till  the  hour  of  his  death  in  exile.  But  this, 
the  mere  implication,  is  really  reducing  God  too  low.  A 
French  editor  of  "The  Paris  Moniteur,"  in  1815,  then  the 
organ  of  Louis  Eighteenth,  thus,  from  day  to  day  recorded 
the  progress  of  the  first  Napoleon  from  Elba  to  Paris  : 

"The  anthropophagist  has  escaped."  "The  Corsican 
Ogre  has  landed."  "The  Tiger  is  coming."  "  The  Mon- 
ster has  slept  at  Grenoble."  "  The  Tyrant  has  arrived  at  Ly- 
ons." tt  The  Usurper  has  been  seen  in  the  environs  of  Paris." 
"  Bonaparte  Advances  Toward,  but  will  never  enter  the 
Capital."  "  Napoleon  will  be  under  our  Ramparts  To- 
morrow." "His  Imperial  Majesty  entered  the  Tuileries  on 
the  21st  of  March,  in  the  midst  of  His  Faithful  Subjects." 
I  know  men  who  have  changed  their  politics  to  be  on  the 
successful  side.  If  immediate  success  in  some  things  means 
anything,  I  believe  it  more  generally  means  that  a  cause  is 
wrong. 

But  success  in  war  is  no  criterion  of  God's  favor.  This 
has  been  the  mistake  of  all  ages.  Russia,  Prussia,  and 
Austria,  at  different  times  have  divided  the  independent 
kingdom  of  Poland  among  themselves,  and  a  chivalric,  bold, 
proud  people  have  been  crushed  to  the  earth.  Is  this  an 
evidence  that  God  endorsed  it  ?  Turkey  crushed  the  Cre- 
tans to  the  earth,  and  a  civilized  world  saw  it  done.  Is  this 
evidence  that  God  endorsed  it  ?  God  may  have  endorsed 
it  or  He  may  not.  As  long  as  men  have  a  future  as  per- 
sons, and  as  a  race,  and  as  long  as  there  is  a  heaven  and  a 
hell,  we  cannot  judge  of  God  in  these  matters.  The  rules 
determining  success  upon  a  battlefield,  are  the  best  generals, 
the  best  soldiers,  the  greatest  number,  the  best  guns,  and 
the  best  home  support.  If  God  wants  to  crush  a  good  army, 
He  will  send  a  better  one  to  do  it,  or  rouse  a  combinatien 


DISPENSATIONS   OF   DIVINE   PROVIDENCE.       l6$ 

of  nations  to  do  it.  He  gives  no  premium  for  weakness, 
and  faith  cannot  take  the  place  of  works.  But  even  if  an 
army  is  crushed  with  these  conditions,  we  are  not  sure  it  is 
right.     Success  is  no  criterion. 

But  the  battle  is  not  to  the  strong,  nor  the  race  to  the 
swift — certainly  nofc  if  God  wills  it  otherwise. — But  is  it  not 
the  rule  that  the  battle  is  to  the  strong,  and  the  race  to  the 
swift  ?  Certainly  no  one  doubts  that  God  can  reverse  the 
rule,  and  He  has  done  so.  God  has  willed  it  otherwise  in 
an  engagement ;  and  furthermore,  the  battle  is  never  to  the 
strong  though  victorious  in  battle,  with  reference  to  the  great 
principles  involved  which  affect  humanity's  redemption  from 
ignorance  and  sin,  and  with  reference  to  ultimate  issues 
which  are  in  the  hands  of  God,  and  about  which  we  really 
know  comparatively  nothing.  That  He  worked  miracles 
upon  the  battlefield  for  the  Israelites  in  the  establishment  of 
a  typical  Theocracy,  establishes  no  precedent  for  the  Divine 
action  in  after  times,  or  for  wars  in  general  for  those  times. 
Being  miracles,  places  them  at  once  beyond  God's  ordinary 
government  of  things. 

In  all  revolutions  affected  by  education,  science,  art, 
Christianity  and  war — symbolized  by  these  revolving  wheels — 
the  race  of  man  is  pressing  on  to  the  goal  of  a  blessed  re- 
demption. On  rolls  the  chariot  of  God's  providence. 
Let  men  and  demons  do  what  they  can,  God  is  carrying  on 
His  work,  and  do  whatever  they  may,  God  presses  it  into 
His  service.  Hear  the  roar  of  the  elements  in  the  north, 
and  see  the  vast  cloudy  pile  advancing  like  a  rugged  wall  of 
ebony  and  tempest,  pushed  by  the  whirlwind's  breath,  with 
a  burning  centre,  and  fringed  with  light,  and  corruscating 
sparks  and  flames  leaping  from  its  bosom  and  returning  ; 
flashes  of  lightning  breaking  from  it  and  hissing  along  before 
its  terrible  march.  It  sweeps  close  the  ground,  covers  half 
the  sky,  and  its  awful   summit  towers  beyond  all  flight  of 


166  SERMONS. 

bird.  In  mighty  travail  it  shakes  the  earth,  and  angrier  jets 
of  fire  bite  the  air  like  fiery  serpents,  while  vital  and  prolific 
from  its  ignescent  centre  great  wheels  are  born  instinct  with 
eyes  ever-looking,  and  by  them  burning  cherubim — four-faced 
and  four-winged,  bearing  upon  their  hea^ls  a  pavement  of 
resplendent  crystal,  supporting  a  sapphire  throne  upon  which 
God  sits.  On  rolls  the  Chariot.  Its  wheels  are  beryl — a 
beautiful  blue — the  cherubim  are  red  and  fiery,  the  cloud  is 
black,  yet  belching  flames,  the  firmament  is  clear  and  bright, 
and  the  Throne  is  above.  The  wheels  are  revolving  •  the 
whirlwind  is  roaring ;  the  lightnings  are  flashing  ;  the  cheru- 
bim are  flying,  each  with  two  wings  extended  in  their  flight, 
and  each  with  two  wings  raised  up  to  the  firmament  to  shield 
them  from  the  glory  above.  Which  way  we  turn  we  hear 
the  thunder  of  the  revolving  wheels,  and  see  the  innumerable 
eyes — mountains  tremble,  kingdoms  shake,  institutions  rock, 
civilizations  give  way.  Now,  the  sun  shines  out  a  moment 
on  them,  the  darkness  stands  back  a  little,  and  Lo  !  the 
wheels  are  wreathed  with  flowers,  and  their  touch  is  soft  and 
noiseless ;  then  the  darkness  rushes  in  again — the  fires  barn, 
the  eyes  flash,  and  on,  through  dust  and  gloom,  blood  spin- 
ning from  their  straiks,  and  hurtling  in  gory  clots  from  their 
axes ;  they  sweep  on,  and  sound  on,  like  the  din  of  an 
earthquake  over  luxurious  empires,  and  hold  the  world  aghast. 
But  their  track  is  upward,  rolling  the  race  up  to  God.  You 
are  confused,  your  minds  are  darkened,  but  the  other  sym- 
bols as  the  series  advances  will  clear  the  darkness,  perfect 
the  picture,  and  bring  out  the  beauty. 


SERMON   XIII. 

ezekiel's  vision  (discourse  II.). 
The  Mysteriousness  of  Providence. 

''  Then  did  the  cherubims  lift  up  their  wings,  and  the  wheels  beside 
them  ;  and  the  glory  of  the  God  of  Israel  was  over  them  above." — Ezekiel 
xi.  22. 

THE  structure  and  relative  position  of  the  wheels  were 
complicated,  M  as  it  were  a  wheel  in  the  middle  of  a 
wheel."  The  wheels  were  probably  of  equal  size,  and  the 
periphery  of  one  was  inserted  at  right  angles,  into  the  peri- 
phery of  the  other — a  combination  which  made  their  revolu- 
tions so  intricate  and  confounding  no  human  mind  could 
possibly  understand  and  explain  them.  This  symbolizes  The 
Mysteriousness  of  Providence. 

The  dispensations  of  Providence  are  indeed  mysterious. 
Cold  dew  is  sprinkled  upon  our  hopes,  affections,  and  remem- 
brances. Our  expectations  budding  in  the  warmth  of  the 
human  heart  shoot  out  their  blooming  vines,  but  they  soon 
grow  pale  and  die  among  the  chilling  winds  and  icy  hills  of 
this  world.  Our  babes  wither  within  our  arms.  Our  sons 
and  daughters  fade  like  some  vernal  plant  whose  root  is 
nipped  by  a  canker-worm  in  the  blooming.  Our  wives  and 
husbands  depart  when  least  we  can  spare  them,  and  leave  us 
broken-hearted.  '  Our  family  altars  are  falling,  falling,  and 
their  ruins  will  soon -be  our  tombs.  Nations  arise,  and  like 
some  mad  meteor  career  awhile  in  the  political  heavens,  and 
expire  in  their  own  brilliancy.     From  the  profoundest  dirfi- 


1 68  SERMONS. 

culties  and  the  most  apparent  contradictions  are  eliminated 
and  established  the  highest  principles  of  Christian  civilization. 
The  thunder-tread  of  revolutions  tramples  to  dust  institutions 
hoary  in  their  antiquity,  and  grand  in  their  history.  Shivered 
grandeur  and  ruined  nationalities  lie  scattered  in  anarchical 
confusion  along  the  track  of  progress.  Progression  writes 
its  name  with  blood,  and  the  banners  of  its  advance  are  hu- 
mid with  tears,  and  flaunted  by  sighs. 

Involved  as  these  wheels  were  they  seemed  contradictory 
in  their  motion.  They  seemed  to  cross  each  other's  motion 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  an  advance  seem  an  impossi- 
bility. How  true  the  application  :  the  character  of  the  Dis- 
pensations of  Providence  often  appear  to  contradict  the  very 
ends  they  profess  to  promote.  How  they  can  promote 
peace  on  earth  by  rolling  over  fields  of  carnage  and  leaving 
the  bloody  impress  of  their  gory  rims  along  the  highways  of 
human  history,  is  indeed  mysterious.  How  they  tend  to 
usher  in  the  millennial  reign  of  Christ,  whose  distinguishing 
characteristic  is  purity,  by  producing  commotions,  and  evolv- 
ing from  the  turbulent  waves,  passion  and  sin  in  their  cor- 
ruptest  and  most  violent  forms,  is  indeed  inexplicable. 
How  they  can  eliminate  and  establish  high  principles  of 
Christian  reform  by  revolutions  whose  ostensible  characteris- 
tics are  war,  pestilence,  and  famine,  which  prostrate  the 
hopes  of  nations  and  drape  a  million  of  family  altars  in  the 
escutcheons  of  the  saddest  woe,  is  a  mystery  we  cannot  un- 
derstand. Yet  every  Christian  philosopher  versed  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  knows  that  such  are  the  facts. 

How  profoundly  mysterious  the  dispensations  of  Provi- 
dence !  How  confused  the  wheels,  how  dark  the  clouds  which 
envelop  them,  how  irregular  the  fires  which  fiercely  burn 
among  them.  The  rims  of  the  chariot  wheels,  symbolizing 
the  dispensations  of  Providence,  roll  on  to  such  heights,  in- 
cluding in  their  circumference  heaven,  hell,  and  the  universe 


THE   MYSTERIOUSNESS   OF   PROVIDENCE.        169 

— "  As  for  their  rings,"  says  the  prophet,  "they  were  so  high 
that  they  were  dreadful."  Their  circle  is  so  stupendous,  and 
we  see  so  small  a  portion  of  it, — or,  cut  by  the  cord  between 
the  visible  and  invisible,  so  small  a  segment  of  it — that  we 
cannot  estimate  its  curve,  hence  cannot  calculate  its  size, 
or  where  its  ends  unite  and  form  a  whole.  To  change  the  il- 
lustration, the  circle  of  the  dispensations  of  Providence  forms 
an  octagon,  and  we  only  see  one  side.  The  plans  of  God 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  form  a  chain ;  and  our  lives 
are  too  short  for  us  to  see  but  one  link,  and  with  some  of  us, 
so  small  a  part  of  that  one  as  to  be  unable  to  understand 
how  it  is  joined  to  the  link  preceding,  and  the  link  following. 
The  only  ideas  that  we  can  form  of  the  whole,  from  the  one, 
are  those  of  strength,  unity,  and  direction  ;  and  then  the  mind 
must  assume  that  the  links  are  all  similar,  that  they  are 
united  the  one  to  the  other,  and  that  the  chain  is  straight. 
In  other  words,  the  plans  of  God  are  infinite,  and  are  a  unity, 
and  we  see  so  small  a  part  of  them,  and  understand  that 
small  part  so  imperfectly,  that  the  mind  has  not  the  requisite 
data  to  reason  to  a  satisfactory  knowledge  of  the  whole.  An 
unbroken  cloud  of  mystery  overhangs  the  fields  of  Provi- 
dence, and  the  immensity  of  the  sweep  of  its  dispensations 
confounds  us. 

The  mysterious  in  Providence  and  religion,  is  wise.  It 
excites  and  develops  faith.  Our  beliefs,  the  groundwork  of 
faith,  are  as  essential  in  the  human  mind  in  making  up 
human  character,  as  our  cognitions.  They  both  have  their 
respective  realms — the  realm  of  belief  lies  under  the  other, 
outside  the  other,  and  above  the  other,  is  infinite  in  its  boun- 
dary ;  and  includes  all  that  makes  life  in  this  world  durable. 
The  relations  between  God  and  man  are  such,  and  the  con- 
dition of  man  is  such,  and  the  philosophic  action  of  faith  and 
its  reflex  influences  upon  the  soul  and  mind  are  such,  that 
faith  only  as  distinguished  from  knowledge,  can  constitute 
8 


I70  SERMONS. 

the  rewardable  condition  forming  the  basis  of  the  construc- 
tion of  Christian  character. 

It  is  morally  sublime  to  see  a  Christian  standing  among 
what  appears  to  him  as  clashing  discords,  and  sweeping  con- 
tradictions, with  his  foot  upon  the  promises  of  God,  calm  and 
trustful.  Revolutions  may  rage ;  nations  may  tear  into 
shreds  existing  governments,  and  out  of  the  fragments  weave 
new  ones  ;  the  chariot  of  God's  Providence  with  its  whirl- 
wind, clouds,  and  fires,  may  roll  over  the  plains  and  moun- 
tain tops,  shake  the  world,  and  shiver  the  foundations  of  all 
human  institutions  ;  yet  his  towering  faith  raises  its  head 
into  eternal  sunshine,  grasps  the  hand  of  God,  and  leans 
against  the  Celestial  Throne.  His  brightest  hopes  may  lie 
dismantled  and  blighted  at  his  feet — every  golden  thread  dis- 
severed, yet  though  a  tear  trembles  down  his  cheek,  he  lifts 
his  eyes  to  heaven  and  says,  "  It  is  all  for  the  best,"  "  whom 
the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth."  Creation  careering  may 
topple  its  planets  into  chaos,  and  the  grand  old  arches  of  the 
universe  may  come  crashing  down,  the  roar  of  its  fragments 
astounding  hell  into  frightened  silence ;  yet  his  faith  is  as 
unshaken  as  the  Mount  of  God  upon  which  his  Father  sits  a 
universal  sovereign  in  the  Heaven  of  heavens. 

The  motions  of  the  wheels  may  be  contradictory,  they 
may  cross  each  other's  motion,  they  may  even  seem  to  go 
backward,  or  seem  to  go  backward  as  often  and  as  easily  as 
they  go  forward  ;  yet  the  prophet  says,  "  they  moved  straight 
forward  " —  not  contradictory,  but  harmonious  ;  not  to  the 
right  or  left,  but  a  straight  forward ; "  not  backward,  but 
advancing,  and  advancing  when  they  seemed  to  go  back- 
ward. 

The  prophet  says  that  the  creatures  and  wheels  "were 
full  of  eyes  round  about."  Eye  is  an  emblem  of  intelligence 
and  ubiquity.  "  Full  of  eyes,"  is  perfection  of  intelligence 
in  ubiquity.     Then  the  creatures  emblematical  of  the  instru- 


THE   MYSTERIOUSNESS   OF   PROVIDENCE.         171 

mentalities  of  Providence,  and  the  wheels  emblematical  of 
the  dispensations  of  Providence,  are  guided  by  ubiquitous 
and  perfect  intelligence. 

No  instruments  of  Providence — and  all  things  are  instru- 
ments— and  no  dispensation  of  Providence  moves  at  ran- 
dom, or  as  it  may  happen.  All  is  under  the  control  of  a 
Perfect  and  Ubiquitous  Intelligence,  which  removes  all 
chance  out  of  the  universe.  But  there  never  was,  and  nevei 
can  be,  such  a  reality  as  chance.  Atheism,  or  the  No  God, 
of  unbelief  has  cast  its  shadow  upon  the  axes  of  all  the  de- 
signs of  the  universe,  and  the  name  of  the  shadow  is  chance. 
But  still  all  events,  and  all  worlds,  move  along  the  pathway 
of  one  intelligent  design  ;  God  the  Designer  is  King,  and 
the  eyes  burn  in  the  shade,  and  look  out  from  all  the  shad- 
ows, and  wo  to  the  sinner  upon  whom  their  gaze  fiercely 
kindles.  "  With  thine  eyes  shalt  thou  behold  and  see  the 
reward  of  the  wicked."  "  The  eyes  of  the  Lord  are  in  every 
place,  beholding  the  evil  and  the  good,"  said  Elihu.  When 
the  patriarch  of  Uz  was  bowed  to  the  dust,  and  the  chariot 
went  sounding  on,  he  said,  "  His  eyes  are  upon  the  ways  of 
man,  and  he  seeth  all  his  goings.  There  is  no  darkness,  nor 
shadow  of  death,  where  the  workers  of  iniquity  may  hide 
themselves." 

The  instruments  and  dispensations  of  Providence  work 
with  a  design.  Chance  is  but  an  ocular  spectrum,  the  com- 
plementary colors  of  Atheism,  it  is  unreal,  yet  really  unworthy 
of  an  intelligence.  The  living  creatures  and  wheels  are  in- 
stinct with  eyes.  A  perfect  intelligence  governs  their  move- 
ments. The  fires  which  burn  are  dreadful,  the  lightnings 
which  flash  are  terrific — But  O,  the  eyes  that  look  from 
every  wing,  and  foot,  and  hand,  and  face  of  the  living  crea- 
tures, and  from  axle,  nave,  spoke,  and  straik  of  every  wheel  , 
blazing  with  a  fiery  intelligence,  and  kindling  with  design — 
are  an  apparition  which   makes   the  blood   of   wickedness 


172  SERMONS. 

creep  cold,  chills  the  heart  of  iniquity,  and  sends  terror 
throughout  sin's  dominions,  and  shakes  the  knees  of  hell.— 
The  eyes  of  a  basilisk  are  not  more  deadly. 

But  the  wheels  in  this  vision  do  not  support  the  cherubim, 
nor  the  firmament  and  throne  above.  They  roll  by  the 
side  of  the  cherubim,  and  under  the  firmament.  They  had 
no  organic  connection  with  either.  The  only  bond  of  union 
between  them  was  that  the  same  spirit  and  life  pervaded  all. 
There  is  a  higher  reason  for  the  use  of  the  wheels  in  this 
vision  than  simply  the  perfection  of  the  rhetorical  figure  of  a 
chariot.  I  have  given  you  several  already,  but  there  is  an- 
other :  The  wheels  were  round  and  formed  a  circle.  The 
circle  is  the  very  symbol  of  completeness,  perfection,  the 
infinite.     It  is  the  basis  figure  in  the  universe. 

Cast  a  stone  from  several  places  upon  the  earth  perpen- 
dicularly into  the  air,  and  they  will  return  towards  a  centre, 
the  same  centre,  a  common  centre  implying  a  circle.  Throw 
a  stone  horizontally  and  it  will  describe  a  curve  as  it  de- 
scends to  the  ground,  acknowledging  a  centre  implying  a  cir- 
cle. In  those  substances  "  in  which  cohesion  is  so  far 
counteracted  by  repulsion  that  the  particles  move  freely  on 
each  other,"  as  in  fluids  and  liquids,  we  see  this  fundamental 
law  beautifully  illustrated.  The  dewdrop  laughing  on  the 
rose's  petal  in  the  blush  of  the  morning,  is  a  glittering  cir- 
clet brighter  than  the  diamond.  Look  at  it  quickly,  for  if  it 
catches  a  glimpse  of  the  rising  sun,  it  will  spread  its  tiny 
wings  and  fly  away.  The  vesicles  of  the  cloud  when  they 
burst  or  unite,  and  the  rain  sets  in,  each  drop  is  a  little  globe. 
Let  the  sun  shine  upon  the  shower,  and  we  have  that  beau- 
tiful meteor,  the  rainbow,  its  "  prismatic  spectra  arranged  in 
the  circumference  of  a  circle."  The  melted  lead  in  its  de- 
scent from  the  top  of  the  shot  tower  forms  spheres  before  it 
reaches  the  pool  which  cools  and  catches  it. 

Even  the  wind    has  its    circuits,   and  describes  forevei 


THE   MYSTERIOUSNESS   OF   PROVIDENCE.         1 73 

curves  and  circles.  Says  Solomon,  "it  whirleth  about  con- 
tinually, and  .  .  .  returneth  again  according  to  his  circuits."' 
The  translation  is  bad,  the  literal  meaning  is  more  intensive. 
Let  two  currents  of  air  coming  from  opposite  directions 
meet,  and  a  whirlwind  is  created,  rotating  and  progressing 
with  such  speed  as  to  tear  trees  up  by  the  roots.  .  The  mass 
of  air  thrown  into  motion  has  its  axis  and  moves  in  a  circle. 
Some  say  the  cause  is  electricity.  Let  ocean  currents  from 
different  directions  meet,  and  whirlpools  are  made,  the  water 
moving  in  a  circle. 

The  nebulae,  if  Laplace  was  right,  revolving  its  tremendous 
circumference,  and  every  part  of  it,  the  axle  included,  de- 
scribing a  circle,  threw  off  successive  rings  or  circles  of  mat- 
ter, which  cooling  and  contracting,  sought  respectively  com- 
mon centres,  and  worlds  were  made  ;  each  world  as  it  was 
keeping  up  the  circular  motion — turning  upon  an  axis,  and 
travelling  along  an  orbit.  Satellites  are  spherical  and  they 
circle  their  primaries.  Planets  are  spherical  and  they  circle 
their  suns — carrying  their  moons  with  them.  Suns,  too,  are 
spherical,  and  they  too,  taking  all  their  planets  with  them, 
take  up  their  grand  march  around  some  common  centre. 
The  immensity  of  their  orbit  confounds  us.  How  far  and 
wide  the  continuation  in  the  multiplication  of  universes,  God 
only  knows — God.  whose  being  and  perfections,  have  the 
circle  for  their  emblem.  And  thus  worlds  and  suns  in  mag- 
nificent circumrotation,  a  circle  in  the  middle  of  a  circle,  a 
wheel  in  the  middle  of  a  wheel,  move  on  under  the  eye  of 
God  to  the  completion  of  their  cycles  and  destiny.  In  a 
circle  tramps  all  the  seasons,  bringing  around  the  same  order 
of  things,  in  everlasting  monotony,  never  reaching  any  goal. 
Nature  and  all  its  appearances,  a  wheel  in  a  wheel,  moves 
in  ever-recurring  circles. 

Men  are  born,  mature  and  die — they  are  children  at  first, 
and  children  at  last — they  come  naked  into   the  world,  and 


174  SERMONS. 

naked  they  go  out  of  it.  History  all  the  time  repeats  itself. 
Generations  and  events  travel  in  circles,  and  so  does  thought 
and  all  its  modes.  On  sweep  the  cycles  :  the  events  of  the 
age  are  but  types  of  what  will  occur  again  far  down  the  cen- 
turies ;  and  the  events  of  this  age  were  typed  far  back  per- 
haps in  a  prehistoric  one.  The  heavenly  bodies  have  their 
cycles,  so  does  man,  and  mind,  and  history.  On  sweep  the 
cycles.  "  That  which  hath  been  is  now  ;  and  that  which  is 
to  be  hath  already  been ;  and  God  requireth  that  which  i^ 
past."  "  The  thing  which  hath  been,  is  that  which  shall  be 
and  that  which  is  done  is  that  which  shall  be  done  :  and  there 
is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun.  Is  there  anything  whereof 
it  may  be  said,  See,  this  is  new  ?  It  hath  been  already  of 
old  time,  which  was  before  us."  On  sweep  the  cycles  ; 
and  to  insure  an  advance  above  the  cyclic  law  of  repetition 
and  monotony,  which  cuts  off  all  progression  in  the  things  of 
earth,  and  nature,  and  time  ;  and  to  bring  man  in  his  des- 
tiny upon  higher  circles,  and  to  give  him  a  goal  worthy  of  a 
man  to  aspire  to,  and  of  a  God  to  give — in  all  the  cycles,  in 
all  the  circles,  roll  the  wheels,  roll  the  cycles,  roll  the  cir- 
cles of  God's  eternal  Providence.  Then,  on  and  up  sweep 
the  cycles — on  and  up  roll  the  circles — on  and  up  revolve 
the  wheels. 


SERMON   XIV. 

ezekiel's  vision — (discourse  III.). 

Unity  of  God's  Designs  in  Providence. 

"Then  did  the  cherubims  lift  up  their  wings,  and  the  wheels  beside 
them  ;  and  the  glory  of  the  God  of  Israel  was  over  above  them. " — Ezekiel 

XI.   22. 

BETWEEN  all  these  symbols,  there  was  perfect  concert 
of  action,  coincidence  and  harmony  of  movement ; 
"When  the  living  creatures  went,  the  wheels  went  beside 
them  ;  and  when  the  living  creatures  were  lifted  up  from  the 
earth,  the  wheels  were  lifted  up  ;  and  when  those  stood, 
these  stood ;  for  the  spirit  of  the  living  creatures  was  in  the 
wheels."  They  were  moved  by  the  same  Spirit  in  obedience 
to  "  the  glory  of  the  God  of  Israel  "  which  "  was  over  them 
above."  When  God  spoke,  wings  were  extended,  and  wheels 
rolled.  When  He  commanded  a  pause,  wings  were  let  down, 
wheels  ceased,  and  the  whole  stood  in  its  immensity  and  in- 
describable majesty — the  wheels  and  cherubim  below.  This 
teaches  us  : 

First,  That  God  is  in  all  things  as  their  vital,  sustaining, 
active,  and  intelligent  Cause.  Upon  the  recognition  of  such 
a  truth  we  can  rear  an  intelligent  system,  explanatory  in  it- 
self of  all  the  phenomena  of  universal  being. 

Second,  It  teaches  us  the  unity  of  the  Divine  plans — that 
God  is  one,  and  that  He  is  the  Archetype,  and  the  centre — 
the  circle  being  infinite,  a  ubiquitous  centre. 

Third,  It  teaches  us  the  unity  of  God's  designs  in  Provi- 
dence, and  that  all  things  willing  or  unwilling,  active  or  pas- 


176  SERMONS. 

sive,  work  with  concerted  action  for  the  accomplishment  of 
design  ;  a  concert  not  derivable  from  the  knowledge  or  will 
of  the  workers,  but  from  the  sovereignty  of  His  government. 

Now,  resting  upon  the  heads  of  the  living  creatures  was 
a  firmament  clear  as  crystal ;  upon  the  firmament  a  throne 
of  sapphire  ;  upon  the  throne  the  appearance  of  a  man- 
invested  with  a  rainbow.  How  magnificently  glorious  !  A 
firmament  clear  as  crystal,  over  whose  splendid  bright- 
ness no  cloud  ever  cast  a  shadow.  Clear  as  crystal,  with 
the  unveiled  glory  of  God  falling  upon  it  till  it  probably 
shone  like  the  sun,  and  poured  a  flood  of  dazzling  bright- 
ness upon  the  compacted  darkness  beneath  it.  The  glory 
of  God  pouring  through  the  crystal  firmament  upon 
the  black  cloud  which  enveloped  the  wheels  below,  and 
streaming  out  till  it  fringed  the  clouds'  sable  circumference 
with  a  band  of  jewelled  light,  is  probably  what  the  prophet 
had  reference  to  when  he  said  that  the  dark  cloud  which 
gave  birth  to  his  vision,  had  a  "brightness  round  about." 
How  well  the  cloud  below  symbolizes  the  obscurity  of  God's 
plans  in  providence  to  man's  mind — from  the  standpoint  of 
humanity.  How  well  the  crystal  firmament  symbolizes  the 
clearness  of  God's  plans  to  His  mind,  and  the  comparative 
clearness  of  God's  plans  to  the  minds  of  those  who  by  trans- 
lation or  death  have  gotten  above  the  firmament.  How  well 
for  us,  in  matters  of  Providence  to  use  reason's  eye  less,  and 
the  eye  of  faith  more. 

"  Above  the  firmament  .  .  .  was  the  likeness  of  a  throne, 
as  the  appearance  of  a  sapphire  stone."  A  sapphire  is  a 
precious  stone,  and  consists  "  almost  entirely  of  pure  crystal- 
lized alumina."  It  is  second  in  hardness  to  the  diamond, 
can  be  electrified  by  friction,  resists  the  power  of  acids,  and 
it  can  impress  a  "  double  refraction  on  rays  of  light."  The 
throne,  itself,  symbolizes  dominion,  sovereignty.  God  is  the 
absolute   King  over  all  kings,  and  nothing  can  transpire  in 


UNITY   OF   GOD'S   DESIGNS.  1 77 

the  universe  but  it  is  under  the  control  of  God.  God's  sov- 
ereignty does  not  make  Him  accountable  for  the  wickedness 
of  men  and  demons.  Wicked  subjects  in  a  government,  and 
criminals  in  prison,  do  not  show  that  a  government  is  bad. 
Jf  God  could  rule  wickedness  out  of  the  world  and  would  do 
it,  He  would  rule  all  good  out  of  it.  Everything  is  under 
God's  control.  He  does  not  order  what  men  do,  but  He  is 
King  over  all.  "  The  Lord  killeth,  and  maketh  alive  ;  he 
bringeth  down  to  the  grave,  and  bringeth  up.  The  Lord 
maketh  poor,  and  maketh  rich  ;  he  bringeth  low,  and  lifteth 
up.  He  raiseth  up  the  poor  out  of  the  dust,  and  lifteth  up 
the  beggar  from  the  dunghill,  to  set  them  among  princes,  and 
to  make  them  inherit  the  throne  of  glory  :  for  the  pillars  of 
the  earth  are  the  Lord's,  and  he  hath  set  the  world  upon 
them.  He  will  keep  the  feet  of  his  saints,  and  the  wicked 
shall  be  silent  in  darkness  :  for  by  strength  shall  no  man  pre- 
vail. The  adversaries  of  the  Lord  shall  be  broken  to  pieces  ; 
out  of  heaven  shall  he  thunder  upon  them  :  the  Lord  shall 
judge  the  ends  of  the  earth  ;  and  he  shall  give  strength  unto 
his  King,  and  exalt  the  horn  of  his  anointed"  (i  Sam.  ii.  6-9). 
"  For  promotion  cometh  neither  from  the  east,  nor  from  the 
west,  nor  from  the  south.  But  God  is  the  Judge  :  he  putteth 
down  one,  and  setteth  up  another" — (Psalms  lxxv.  6,  7). 

The  throne  is  symbolized  by  a  precious  gem,  showing  the 
superior  value  and  worth  of  spiritual  things  to  earthly  things  ; 
the  essential  valuableness  of  a  governing  power  in  Provi- 
dence ;  the  superiority  of  God's  dominions  to  all  human  do- 
minions ;  and  that  the  most  valuable  in  all  human  ends  and 
aims  is  above  the  firmament.  A  throne  of  a  precious  gem  is 
in  harmony  with  that  idea  of  unity  which  is  characteristic  of 
God,  His  plans,  His  system.  We  feel  that  a  throne  of  less 
value  would  not  be  appropriate  for  God  to  sit  on.  The  throne 
is  symbolized  by  a  crystallization — a  sapphire  stone,  which 
resists  the  power  of  acids — denoting  indestructibility.  The 
8* 


178  SERMONS. 

throne  is  symbolized  by  a  sapphire  stone — a  generic  name 
which  includes  under  it  so  many  gems  of  wondrous  beauty, 
and  such  a  variety  of  colors:  There  is  the  "  lively  and  in- 
tense red  "  oriental  ruby  ;  the  colorless  or  gray  sapphire  ;  the 
deep  blue  oriental  sapphire  ;  the  yellow  oriental  topaz  ;  the 
violet  colored  oriental  amethyst ;  the  translucent,  and  blue 
or  red  or  pearl  tinted  chatoyant  sapphire  ;  and  the  bright, 
beautiful,  opalescent,  star,  or  asteriated  sapphire.  "The 
same  crystal  of  sapphire  sometimes  exhibits  a  union  of  two 
or  three  different  colors."  The  name  of  sapphire  is  usually 
applied  to  blue  crystals,  and  a  shining  deep  blue  was  proba- 
bly the  color  of  the  throne.  This  is  in  harmony  with  the 
appearance  of  the  sky  above,  whose  apparent  circular  dome 
types  the  finite,  but  whose  reality  types  the  infinite. 

"  Upon  the  likeness  of  the  throne  was  the  likeness  as  the 
appearance  of  a  man  above  upon  it,"  says  the  prophet.  The 
man  was  clothed  with  a  garment  of  splendid  fire,  which,  ra- 
diating, invested  him  with  a  bright  aureola,  says  the  prophet. 
(Read  the  first  chapter  of  Ezekiel.)  The  Bible  represents 
God  as  a  spirit  without  body  or  parts.  The  revelations  of 
Himself  are  generally  in  keeping  with  this  idea.  But  in  this 
vision  symbolizing  His  Providential  Government  He  is  seen 
in  the  form  of  a  man.  The  form  of  a  man  upon  the  throne 
is  significant  of  redemption  in  its  relations  to  Providence — 
man  the  chief  object,  however,  under  any  hypothesis — for  it 
is  the  redemption  of  man.  But  we  have  the  glory  of  God  in 
the  likeness  of  a  man,  symbolizing  the  God  incarnated.  But 
why  was  God  incarnated  ?  To  save  sinners.  Why  is  He  en- 
throned upon  the  chariot  of  His  Providence  in  the  symbol 
of  His  incarnation — in  the  very  form  necessary  to  redeem 
man  and  only  assumed  for  this  purpose  ?  To  save  sinners. 
The  salvation  of  mankind  is  the  grand  end  of  every  instru- 
mentality and  dispensation  of  Providence.  For  this  purpose 
the   living  creatures  fly,  the    wheels   revolve,    empires   are 


UNITY   OF   GOD'S  DESIGNS.  179 

crushed.  The  salvation  of  mankind  is  the  centre  around 
which  every  instrumentality  of  Providence  performs  its  cir- 
cuit ;  it  is  the  end  of  every  dispensation  of  Providence,  how- 
ever wide  and  inexplicable  its  movements  ;  it  is  the  focal 
altar  where  all  of  them  converge  in  glory,  and  kindle  into 
meaning.  "  Lo,  all  those  things  worketh  God  oftentimes 
with  man,  to  bring  back  his  soul  from  the  pit."  "  Thou 
wentest  forth  for  the  salvation  of  thy  people." 

This  is  the  reason  of  many  of  our  personal  afflictions  : 
"  But  he  knoweth  the  way  that  I  take  :  when  he  hath  tried 
me,  I  shall  come  forth  as  gold."  "  For  thou,  O  God,  hast 
tried  us,  as  silver  is  tried.  Thou  broughtest  us  into  the  net : 
thou  laidest  afflictions  upon  our  loins.  Thou  hast  caused 
men  to  ride  over  our  heads  ;  we  went  through  fire  and  through 
water  :  but  thou  broughtest  us  into  a  wealthy  place."  "  And 
1  will  bring"  my  people  "through  fire,  and  will  refine  them 
as  silver  is  refined,  and  will  try  them  as  gold  is  tried  :  they 
shall  call  on  my  name,  and  I  will  hear  them  :  I  will  say,  It 
is  my  people  :  and  they  shall  say,  The  Lord  is  my  God." 
"  Rejoice,  though  ....  ye  are  in  heaviness  through  mani- 
fold temptations  :  that  the  trial  of  your  faith,  being  more 
precious  than  of  gold  which  perisheth,  though  it  is  tried  with 
fire,  might  be  found  unto  praise  and  honor  and  glory  at  the 
appearing  of  Jesus  Christ."  "  Fear  none  of  those  things 
thou  shalt  suffer :  behold,  the  Devil  shall  cast  some  of  you 
into  prison,  that  ye  may  be  tried  ....  be  thou  faithful 
unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a  crown  of  life." 

The  throne  and  him  who  sat  upon  it  was  invested  with  a 
brightness,  which  had  "  the  appearance  of  the  bow  that  is  in 
the  cloud  in  the  day  of  rain."  Its  tissues  of  sunbeams, 
woven  in  alternate  threads  of  ruby  and  orange,  aureate  and 
emerald,  azure  and  violet,  environed  the  head  of  the  God- 
man  with  its  bending  beauties.  1.  The  rainbow  types  God 
and  the  manifestations  of  God.     There  are  three  colors  in 


180  •  SERMONS. 

the  rainbow — red,  yellow,  and  blue,  typing  the  three  persons 
in  the  Godhead.  These  three  colors  appear  as  seven — red, 
orange,  yellow,  green,  blue,  indigo,  and  violet — typing  the 
sevenfold  manifestations  of  God's  glory.  Thus  the  three 
persons  in  the  Godhead,  and  all  the  manifestations  of  God, 
are  connected  with  Providence,  and  Providence's  relations 
to  the  destiny  of  man. 

2.  The  rainbow  is  a  sign  of  mercy,  the  sign  of  a  promise, 
the  sign  of  a  covenant,  the  sign  of  a  broken  tempest,  the 
herald  of  coming  light  and  coming  tranquillity.  Said  God  to 
Noah  :  *  I  will  establish  my  covenant  with  you ;  neither 
shall  all  flesh  be  cut  off  any  more  by  the  waters  of  a  flood ; 
this  is  a  token  of  the  covenant  I  make  between  me  and  you, 
and  every  living  creature  that  is  with  you,  for  perpetual 
generations.  I  do  set  my  bow  in  the  cloud,  and  it  shall 
be  for  a  token  of  the  covenant  between  me  and  the  earth." 
The  appointment  of  such  a  token  of  the  covenant  and  sign 
of  the  promise  made  to  Noah  had  its  philosophy — cloud 
broken  somewhere,  sun  shining  somewhere.  How  appro- 
priate then  is  the  connection  of  a  rainbow  with  the  vision 
symbolizing  the  Divine  government.  Though  the  dark 
clouds  of  Providence  may  sweep  over  your  heads  in  black 
and  massive  wrath,  yet,  look  up  !  the  sun  is  shining  some- 
where, the  darkness  is  broken  somewhere.  The  inimitable 
pencillings  of  the  Divine  glory  have  penetrated  the  gloom, 
and  left  a  rainbow  glittering  upon  the  wing,  and  blushing 
upon  the  cheek  of  the  tempest.  There  is  the  sign  of  God's 
faithfulness  to  His  covenant  made  with  you  ;  the  sign  of  the 
immutability  of  His  promises ;  the  sign  of  deliverance ;  the 
sign  of  coming  day. 

The   rainbow  environs   the  form  of  the  man   upon  the . 
throne.     Let  the  sun   shine  upon  a  shower,  and  its  rays  are 
refracted,  reflected,  and  separated  "  into  the  colors  of  the 
prismatic  spectrum"  by  "  the  drops  of  the  falling  rain,"  and 


UNITY   OF   GOD'S   DESIGNS.  l8l 

we  have  a  rainbow.  Go  into  a  dark  room,  and  make  a 
small  hole  into  the  wall  admitting  a  beam  of  "  white  or  solar 
light,"  and  place  at  the  hole  a  triangular  glass  prism,  and 
the  rays  of  light  composing  the  beam  are  separated  by  re- 
fraction into  the  primary  colors,  and  a  spectrum  exhibiting 
the  hues  of  the  rainbow  is  seen  on  the  opposite  wall.  Now 
this  vision,  says  Ezekiel,  "  was  the  appearance  of  the  glory 
of  the  Lord."  Let  the  Divine  glory,  the  manifestation  of 
God's  nature,  shine  upon  human  destiny  through  humanity, 
or  shine  upon  humanity  itself  through  the  God-man,  and 
a  rainbow,  the  very  symbol  of  love,  is  seen  in  the  heavens, 
and  arches  the  head  of  the  power  which  governs  the 
race ;  and  proclaims  that  God  loves  man,  and  governs 
him  for  his  good.  The  beams  of  the  Divine  glory  which 
would  consume  us,  when  shining  through  Jesus  is  the 
beautiful  symbol  of  a  promise  of  protection.  And  as  the 
prism  analyzes  the  light  and  reveals  its  beauties,  so,  through 
Jesus  and  humanity,  the  Divine  glory  is  exhibited  in  hues 
and  shades  of  beauty,  undreamed  of  before  by  the  angels. 

Glorious  rainbow  !  It  bent  over  the  weeping  prophet  in 
the  land  of  captivity ;  it  bent  over  the  aged  John  in  the  Isle 
of  Patmos ;  it  bends  over  your  shattered  hearthstones  and 
shivered  family  altars  ;  it  bends  over  the  graves  of  your  hopes, 
and  the  tombs  of  your  children  ;  it  spans  the  valley  of  afflic- 
tion, arches  the  river  of  death,  and  its  further  point  rests 
upon  the  shores  of  the  Canaan  of  God.  We  look  too  much 
below.  Look  up  !  and  our  lives  will  be  brighter  then.  Grand 
old  vision  of  Ezekiel,  sweep  on  in  symbolic  majesty  till  the 
end  be,  and  when  lifted  up  into  heaven  at  the  end  of  the 
days,  may  we  be  found  standing  on  its  imperishable  firma- 
ment of  dazzling  glory,  close  to  the  throne  of  Him  who 
drove  its  immense  machinery  over  the  smouldering  ruins  of 
a  burning  world  to  so  magnificent  an  achievement  as  the 
salvation  of  man. 


SERMON  XV. 

"  WHY  HAST  THOU  MADE  ME  THUS  ?  " 

"  O,  man,  who  art  thou  that  repliest  against  God?  Shalt  the  thing 
formed  say  to  him  that  formed  it,  Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus?" — 
Romans  ix.  20. 

ALL  that  is  said  about  Jacob  and  Esau,  can  be  interpre- 
ted by  simply  explaining  the  phrase,  "  Jacob  have  I 
loved,  but  Esau  have  I  hated."  It  is  strange,  that  this  pas- 
sage of  Scripture  should  be  so  misinterpreted,  when  the 
design  of  Paul  in  the  connections  of  the  passage  is  so  appar- 
ent. He  is  speaking  of  God's  call  of  the  Israelites  as  the 
chosen  people,  and  not  of  the  Edomites.  The  Israelites 
were  the  descendants  of  Jacob,  the  Edomites  were  the 
descendants  of  Esau.  God's  call  of  Jacob  was  one  to  the 
privileges,  position,  and  blessings  of  an  outward,  corporate 
kingdom  ;  and  had  no  respect  to  the  inward  character  of 
Jacob  or  Esau,  to  the  influences  of  the  spirit  upon  either  of 
them,  or  to  the  everlasting  destiny  of  either  of  them.  God 
had  promised  to  bless  the  world  through  Abraham's  seed, 
and  He  was  compelled  to  choose  between  Abraham's  seed — 
and  God  took  Isaac.  He  could  not  take  all.  So  with 
Jacob. 

But  is  not  the  record,  "  The  children  being  not  yet  born, 
neither  having  done  any  good  or  evil,  that  the  purpose  of 
God  according  to  election  might  stand,  not  of  works,  but  of 
him  that  calleth,  it  was  said  unto  her  (that  is  Rebecca  the 
mother  of  Esau  and  Jacob),  The  elder  shall  serve  the  youn- 


"WHY   HAST  THOU   MADE   ME  THUS?"         1 83 

ger.  As  it  is  written,  Jacob  have  I  loved,  but  Esau  have  I 
hated  ?  "  But  this  record  shows  that  God's  election  of  Jacob 
as  the  father  and  .representative  of  His  chosen  people,  over 
his  brother  Esau,  had  no  reference  to  the  "  works,"  or  char- 
acter, or  personal  destiny  of  the  men  themselves,  but  rested 
in  the  prerogative  of  God  to  select  between  the  two — the  pre- 
rogative of  God  to  call  whom  He  saw  fit — and  not  to  call  by 
His  Spirit  to  personal  salvation.  The  record  is  that  Jacob 
the  younger  was  preferred  to  Esau  the  elder. 

As  to  the  Lord  hating  Esau,  the  word  hate  does  imply  the 
idea  of  abhorrence.  But  let  the  Bible  explain  itself :  It  is 
said  in  Genesis  :  "  The  Lord  saw  that  Leah  was  hated  by 
Jacob."  In  the  verse  preceding,  it  is  said,  Jacob 
"  loved  ....  Rachel  more  than  Leah."  This  explains  the 
word  "  hate  " — Leah  was  less  loved  than  Rachel.  In  Luke, 
Christ  says,  "  If  any  man  come  to  me,  and  hate  not  his 
father,  and  mother,  and  wife,  and  children,  and  brethren,  and 
sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life,  also,  he  cannot  be  my  disci- 
ple." In  Matthew,  Christ  says,  "  He  that  loveth  father  or 
mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me  ;  and  he  that 
loveth  son  or  daughter  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me." 
Again  in  Matthew,  Christ  says,  "  No  man  can  serve  two 
masters  :  for  either  he  will  hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other." 
The  love  cannot  be  equal,  yet  love  of  mammon  for  the  sake 
of  the  love  of  God  is  possible. 

The  Lord  preferred  Jacob  to  Esau,  and  it  had  nothing  to 
do  with  their  personal  salvation.  Really,  Esau  in  many 
essential  respects  was  a  nobler  man  than  Jacob.  Jacob  was 
guilty  of  fraud,  and  then  ran  away,  yet  Esau  forgave  him 
upon  his  return.  But  it  is  said  in  Hebrews  that  after  Esau 
sold  his  birthright,  "when  he  would  have  inherited  the  bless- 
ing, he  was  rejected,  for  he  found  no  place  of  repentance, 
though  he  sought  it  carefully  with  tears."  This  does  not  mean 
that  God  rejected  him,  that  God  would  not  permit  him  to 


1 84  SERMONS. 

repent,  or  that  God  would  not  pay  any  regard  to  bis  tears. 
No,  the  blessing  grieved  after  by  Esau  was  the  blessings  and 
prerogatives  of  him  being  the  oldest  child  o£  Isaac,  and  which 
Isaac  had  given  to  Jacob,  and  Isaac  would  not  change  his 
mind  about  it — he  would  not  revoke  the  blessing  pronounced 
upon  Jacob,  though  Esau  begged  him  to  do  so  with  tears. 
Isaac  would  not  change  his  will — testament.  God  was  in 
the  matter  however,  and  Esau  had  sold  his  birthright,  and  he 
ought  to  have  stood  to  the  bargain,  although  Jacob  was  worse 
than  he,  in  taking  advantage  of  his  brother.  If,  however, 
God  did  really  hate  Esau  and  consigned  him  to  eternal  pun- 
ishment, before  he  was  born,  and  that  without  reference  to 
Esau's  works  ;  then  Esau  had  the  right  to  ask  God,  "  Why 
hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  " 

As  to  the  case  of  Pharaoh,  God  brought  upon  him  but 
the  judgments  he  deserved.  God  did  not  fit  him  for  de- 
struction, but  he  was  already  a  vessel  of  wrath  "  fitted  to 
destruction."  Then  the  destruction  is  but  temporal,  and  was 
accomplished  in  the  Red  Sea.  Not  a  word  is  said  about 
personal  salvation,  or  damnation.  God  in  carrying  on  the 
progress  of  the  world,  has  overthrown  many  kingdoms  and 
kings,  brought  them  to  entire  destruction,  without  sending 
the  kings  to  hell.  God  is  establishing  a  historic  and  visible 
church,  and  He  treats  of  the  enemies  of  that  church  upon 
the  same  principle.  There  is  no  more  evidence  that  God 
damned  Pharaoh  than  that  He  saved  all  the  children  of 
Israel  in  heaven,  because  Israel  was  the  external  type  of  the 
coming  spiritual  church. 

Paul  said,  "  Shall  the  thing  formed  say  to  him  that  formed 
it,  why  hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  "  If  that  means  that  God 
condemned  Esau  and  Pharaoh  to  eternal  punishment,  before 
the  birth  of  both — that  he  hated  Esau  before  he  was  born, 
and  that  he  raised  Pharaoh  for  that  purpose,  or  that  God 
from  a  mere  prerogative  in  Himself  condemned  any  othei 


"WHY   HAST  THOU   MADE   ME  THUS?"         185 

man,  or  set  of  men,  then  all  the  condemned  have  a  right  to 
challenge  God's  Justice,  and  to  ask  the  question,  "  Why  hast 
thou  made  me  thus  ?  "  If  formed  for  eternal  condemnation, 
they  have  the  right  to  ask  the  question,  and  if  possible  resist 
the  power  of  such  a  God.  That  God  who  made  Esau, 
should  hate  Esau  before  he  was  born,  and  send  him  to  hell, 
and  then  try  to  hush  Esau's  mouth  in  asking  a  reason  for  it, 
by  the  sentence,  "  Who  art  thou  that  repliest  against  God  ?  " 
is  irreconcilable  with  any  idea  of  Justice  possible  to  conceive 
of  in  any  mind.  If  this,  in  defiance  of  all  our  ideas  of- 
justice,  be  justice  with  God,  then  we  can  never  form  any 
idea  of  any  moral  quality,  and  we  are  unprepared  to  under- 
stand any  requirement  in  the  Bible.  If  this  be  justice,  then 
lasciviousness  may  be  chastity,  as  far  as  we  can  form  any 
idea  of  it. 

Justice  always  implies  two  parties,  and  that  these  two  par- 
ties have  rights,  and  its  essence  is  to  regard  these  respective 
rights  in  the  adjustment  of  the  relations  between  the  two 
parties.  God  could  have  no  justice  if  there  was  no  being 
in  the  universe  but  Himself,  and  if  God  can  be  said  to  have 
justice  there  must  be  other  beings  in  the  universe  beside  Him- 
self, and  if  the  recognition  of  rights  upon  the  part  of  both 
parties  is  essential  to  the  idea  of  justice,  then  both  parties 
have  inalienable  personal  rights.  God  the  Creator,  with 
respect  to  the  creature,  has  rights  ;  but  the  creature  has 
rights  too.  God's  rights  with  reference  to  man  are  not  abso- 
lute. The  end  for  the  creation  of  every  intelligent  creature 
is  not  absolutely  in  God  Himself.  God  has  no  right  to  make 
a  thinking,  feeling  man,  for  the  purpose  of  making  that  man 
unhappy  in  order  to  show  forth  His  power  in  doing  so  ; — and 
He  has  not  done  it. 

Man  with  respect  to  God  has  rights.  1st.  Because  he 
has  the  conditions  of  a  distinct  personality — he  is  of  himself 
a  person.     If  he  is  saved,  it  is  he  who  is  saved,  not  God  ; 


1 86  SERMONS. 

if  he  is  lost,  it  is  he  who  is  lost,  not  God.  He  may  Lave  de- 
rived his  being  from  God,  and  he  may  depend  on  God  to 
uphold  his  being,  but  if  he  is  a  person  distinct  from  God  as 
a  person,  he  has  rights. 

2d.  Because  man  being  intelligent  has  a  will.  Will  is 
no  mere  faculty  but  the  whole  of  the  mind.  It  is  the  high- 
est condition  of  the  mind.  It  is  that  state  of  executive 
mind,  with  reference  to  moral  alternatives,  when  the  mind 
makes  character.  Man  has  the  power  of  willing — the  power 
of  choosing  to  act  in  accordance  with  God's  will,  or  the 
power  to  rebel  against  God,  and  act  contrary  to  God's  will. 
Such  an  intelligence  can  own  something  of  itself  —  it  has 
rights.  If  a  man  has  the  power  to  endorse  God,  or  to  re- 
flect upon  God,  such  power  must  arise  from  the  mind's  con- 
sciousness of  personal  rights — rights  which  the  Great  God 
must  either  respect  or  trample  upon.  God  cannot  make  an 
intelligent,  accountable  being,  without  that  being  possessing, 
in  virtue  of  his  constitution  as  God  has  made  him,  and  can 
only  make  him,  personal  rights. 

3d.  God  accords  to  man  such  rights  in  what  He  has  done 
for  man  in  redemption.  He  sent  His  Son  for  the  express 
purpose  of  reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself ;  and  after 
the  scheme  of  reconciliation  is  complete,  God  submits  it  to 
man  for  his  acceptance  or  rejection,  and  sends  messengers 
to  explain  its  provisions,  and  to  show  that  it  is  just  to  man 
— that  it  has  respect  to  the  rights  of  man,  as  well  as  to  the 
rights  of  God.  The  whole  thing  is  a  covenant  between  God 
and  man,  and  all  covenants  recognize  rights  upon  the  part 
of  both  parties. 

4th.  That  under  God  the  creature  has  rights,  is  evident 
from  the  appointment  of  a  Judgment  day.  The  appoint- 
ment of  such  a  day  is  not  necessary  to  the  apportionment  of 
rewards  and  punishments,  but  that  men  and  angels  may  see 
the  reason  of  God's  Judgment  in  every  case,  and  endorse 


"WHY   HAST  THOU    MADE   ME   THUS?"         1 87 

the  decisions  of  the  Divine  Justice.  God  treats  every  man 
as  if  that  man  was  a  king — and  a  king  he  may  be. 

God  and  Christianity,  while  requiring  every  man  to  sub- 
mit to  the  will  of  God — which  every  good  man  conscious  of 
his  own  ignorance  and  weakness  does — yet  they  do  not  re- 
quire an  abnegation  of  man's  manhood,  but  an  intelligent 
submission  to  God's  will.  Some  men  have  false  ideas  of  sub- 
mission to  God's  will.  When  God's  will  is  Clearly  revealed 
we  have  the  right  to  press  the  matter,  as  shown  in  the  cases 
of  Abraham' sprayer  for  Sodom,  Jacob's  wrestling,  Job's  order 
of  his  cause,  Elijah's  prayer,  Moses'  prayer  for  the  Israelites, 
and  the  prayer  of  the  Syrophenician  woman.  Man  has  a  right 
to  question  God,  to  ask,  "  Why  hast  thou  made  me  thus  ?  " 
if  God  made  him  for  the  purpose  of  damning  him  in  hell ;  if 
God  made  his  salvation  depend  upon  conditions  which  were 
never  presented  to  him ;  if  God  held  him  accountable  for 
opportunities  he  never  had ;  and  if  God  made  his  salvation 
depend  upon  any  human  ordinance  which  could  not  be 
available  under  all  circumstances — for  instance,  baptism  by 
water. 

But  if  God  makes  every  man's  salvation  depend  upon  con- 
ditions in  reach  of  every  man — judging  him  only  in  propor- 
tion to  his  opportunities  and  talents — whether  he  lives  in 
Christian  or  heathen  lands,  and  that  there  is  a  future  ahead 
full  of  compensations  for  the  disadvantages  a  man  suffers  here 
on  account  of  his  race,  and  the  necessary  means  employed  to 
develop  the  race,  though  it  might  involve  affliction  to  some  : 
if  this  be  so,  no  man  has  a  right  to  protest  against  God — he 
has  no  right  to  ask  God  such  a  question.  If  God  makes 
every  man's  salvation  depend  upon  these  conditions,  then 
man's  right  of  protest  is  gone.  But  there  are  mysteries  and 
difficulties  remaining.  Why  are  you  born  and  raised  in  Bal- 
timore, in  sight  of  churches,  and  another  man  raised  and 
born  among  brutal  cannibals  ?     Why  do  you  have  parents 


1 88  SERMONS. 

who  dress  you  and  send  you  to  church,  why  do  I  have  pa- 
rents who  let  me  go  in  rags  and  give  me  no  religious  instruc- 
tion ?  Why  am  I  subject  to  certain  measures  of  discipline  ? 
We  have  no  right  to  ask  God,  "  Why  hast  thou  made  me 
thus?"  Eternity  will  explain.  "  Clouds  and  darkness  are 
round  about  him,  but  Justice  and  judgment  are  the  habita- 
tion of  his  throne." 

Job  was  afflicted.  To  all  appearances  he  was  a  good  man. 
Why  was  he  thus  afflicted?  It  almost  seemed  a  reflection 
upon  the  very  character  of  God.  Job  and  his  three  friends 
were  discussing  the  matter.  Eliphaz,  one  of  the  three  friends, 
one  night  went  to  bed.  He  fell  asleep  thinking  of  the  whole 
matter.  His  thoughts  shaped  themselves  into  visions,  which 
gradually  faded  away  and  a  deep  sleep  came  upon  him. 
During  the  night,  a  great  fear  came  upon  him,  he  was  seized 
with  trembling,  and  all  his  bones  shook.  A  cold  air  passed 
over  his  face — a  kind  of  breathing — there  was  a  chill  in  the 
room,  and  the  hair  of  his  flesh  stood  with  horror.  There 
was  an  awful  presence,  a  spirit,  in  the  room,  and  it  was 
night.  It  seemed  like  a  misty  shadow  growing  out  of  the 
darkness,  standing  near  him,  cold  and  formless,  yet  dis- 
tinct, and  it  fixed  its  eyes  on  him,  and  one  of  the  folds  of 
its  pale  robe  formed  itself  into  a  ghastly  hand,  and  a  shadowy 
finger  pointed  into  his  face,  and  in  a  low  voice,  more  felt  than 
heard,  it  said,  "  Shall  mortal  man  be  more  just  than  God  ?  " 
— as  if  it  had  said,  "  Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do 
right  ?  "  Life  is  strange.  God's  dealings  with  men  are  mys- 
terious, but  many  of  the  reasons  are  discoverable,  if  we 
would  take  the  trouble  to  do  it,  and  others  of  them  we  can- 
not understand.  But  God  is  righteous  and  good,  and  right- 
eousness and  goodness  we  can  always  trust. 

Is  God  good  ?  Goodness  always  implies  the  idea  of  love 
and  mercy.  Many  people  have  such  strange  ideas  of  God. 
They  use  God  as  something  to  frighten  children  with.     God 


''WHY  HAST  THOU  MADE  ME  THUS?"    1 89 

is  good.  Look  how  He  has  made  us — the  adaptation  of  the 
world  to  us  shows  His  goodness.  See  that  beautiful  maiden 
with  rosy  and  laughing  face,  standing  on  the  misty  hills 
every  morning,  looking  with  a  merry  and  kind  eye  over 
sleeping  cities  and  stirring  farmyards.  She  is  the  dawning 
day,  and  the  light  of  her  eyes  wakes  all  the  birds,  and  her 
delicate  touch  leaves  a  diamond  crown  upon  every  dewdrop 
which  nestles  in  the  heart  of  the  rose,  hangs  pendent  from 
every  spire  of  grass  and  blade  of  corn,  and  dances  on  the 
quivering  leaves  of  every  giant  oak.  She  is  God's  daughter, 
and  a  daily  messenger  of  the  Divine  goodness. 

See  the  angels  open  the  splendid  portals  of  light,  and  see 
the  king  of  day  come  forth  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race. 
See  his  fine  eye  as  its  golden  light  flashes  through  the  woods, 
and  every  bird  sings  as  if  its  little  heart  was  breaking  with 
joy,  and  every  running  rill  sends  over  laughing  pebbles 
wavelets  of  rippling  silver.  See  him  climb  the  orient  and 
stand  on  the  keystone  of  the  magnificent  arches  which  have 
measured  all  the  days  since  the  fingers  of  God  sent  the  earth 
spinning  upon  its  axes  long  ages  ago.  See  him  at  evening 
go  to  bed*  in  amber  clouds,  and  his  great  eye  grow  red  as 
sleep  steals  upon  him,  till  the  dark  spirit  of  the  night  shades 
his  face  with  -her  sombre  robe,  and  evokes  with  her  wand  a 
thousand*  beauties  to  compensate  for  his  absence.  In  all  his 
daily  journeys  he  has  but  one  language,  "  God  is  good." 

The  mysterious  beauties  of  the  night  tell  the  same  story. 
See  the  deep  fathomless  Space  above  you.  It  is  night.  The 
moon  is  shining  and  the  stars  are  gleaming — oh,  how  lovely  ! 
See  the  constellations  : — There  is  the  Argo  Navis  in  full  sail 
through  the  ocean  ether  to  Colchis  for  the  golden  fleece. 
You  can  almost  see  Jason  on  the  deck,  and  hear  the  lyre  of 
Orpheus.  There  we  see  Perseus  with  the  awful  head  of 
Medusa  in  his  hand.  There  we  see  Cepheus  and  Cassiopeia, 
the  father  and  mother  of  Andromeda,  and  Andromeda  her- 


190  SERMONS. 

self,  sweet  virgin,  chained  on  the  rocks,  and  waiting  to  be 
devoured  by  a  monster.  There  we  see  the  beautiful  and 
yellow  hair  of  Berenice,  streaming  in  the  constellation  of  Leo  ; 
the  milk  of  Juno  ;  the  magnificent  Orion  with  his  belt ;  and 
the  sweet  daughters  of  Ple'ione  who  seem  to  sing  around  the 
Throne  of  the  Great  Eternal.  The  planets,  the  stars,  the 
moon,  are  but  expressions  of  God's  goodness. 


SERMON   XVI. 

THE    DAY   OF    JUDGMENT. 

"  But  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  come  as  a  thief  in  the  night ;  in  the  which 
the  heavens  shall  pass  away  with  a  great  noise,  and  the  elements  shall 
melt  with  fervent  heat,  the  earth  also  and  the  works  that  are  therein  shall 
be  burned  up. 

"  Seeing  then  that  all  these  things  shall  be  dissolved,  what  manner  of 
persons  ought  ye  to  be  in  all  holy  conversation  and  godliness  ; 

"  Looking  for  and  hasting  unto  the  coming  of  the  day  of  God,  wherein 
the  heavens,  being  on  fire,  shall  be  dissolved,  and  the  elements  shall  melt 
with  fervent  heat  ? 

«'  Nevertheless  we,  according  to  his  promise,  look  for  new  heavens  and 
a  new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness. 

"Wherefore,  beloved,  seeing  that  ye  look  for  such  things,  be  diligent 
that  ye  may  be  found  of  him  in  peace,  without  spot,  and  blameless." — 
2  Peter  iii.  10-15. 

THIS  day  is  called  by  Peter,  in  the  text,  "the  day  of 
the  Lord,"  because  for  it  all  other  days  are  ;  from  it 
all  other  days  borrow  their  value  ;  and  into  it  the  interests  of 
all  other  days  will  be  crowded,  from  the  first  day  that  dawned 
and  flashed  its  splendors  upon  man's  Eden  home,  till  the  last 
day  shall  fade.  It  will  be  emphatically  "  the  day  of  the 
Lord,"  because,  then,  He  will  so  publicly  demonstrate  His 
justice  and  integrity  in  saving  the  righteous  and  destroying 
the  wicked,  as  to  call  forth  the  voluntary  and  spontaneous 
sanction  of  the  Universe.  The  principles  of  His  law,  the 
righteousness  of  its  claims,  the  justness  of  its  penalty,  the 
moral  agency  and  conduct  of  His  subjects,  the  principles 
upon  which  some  are  saved  and   others  lost,  the  whole  ad- 


192  SERMONS 

ministration  and  system  of  His  government,  will  be  so  per- 
fectly exhibited  and  endorsed,  that  heaven,  earth,  and  hell 
will  say  "  Amen."  Then,  for  the  first  time  since  man  was 
made,  God  will  receive  Universal  glory. 

It  will  be  "  the  day  of  the  Lord,"  for  Christ  shall  be  the 
Judge  ;  "  The  Father  hath  committed  all  judgments  unto  the 
Son."  The  General  Judgment  is  the  consummation  of  the 
scheme  of  Redemption.  Christ  is  the  subject  of  redemp- 
tion :  He  began  it,  and  He  will  finish  it.  He  began  it  in 
humiliation  and  suffering,  He  will  end  it  in  august  and  tri- 
umphant grandeur.  His  persecutors,  crucifiers,  and  tempter 
will  stand  as  trembling  culprits  at  His  judicial  bar.  All  His 
enemies  will  stand  quaking  beneath  the  majesty  of  His  glory, 
and  wait  with  insufferable  woe  the  announcement  of  their 
doom.     It  will  be  the  day  of  Christ's  triumph. 

II.  This  is  not  a  dream.  The  announcement  of  this 
warning  is  a  great  coming  fact.  The  text  says,  "  The  day  of 
the  Lord  will  come  ! "  In  the  days  of  the  Apostle  Peter 
there  were  scoffers  who  denied  this,  doctrine  and  said,  "  Where 
is  the  promise  of  his  coming  ?  for  since  the  fathers  fell 
asleep,  all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the  beginning 
of  the  creation."  After  showing  the  sophistry  of  such  a  pro- 
cess of  reasoning,  by  arguments  drawn  from  the  creation 
and  Noah's  flood,  he  shows  the  fallacy  of  attributing  our 
ideas  of  the  length  of  time  to  God,  and  says,  "  The  Lord  is 
not  slack  concerning  his  promise,"  and  assigns  a  reason  for 
the  apparent  delay  of  Christ's  coming,  the  mercy  of  God  in 
extending  the  time  of  man's  probation  as  a  race,  and  adds 
by  inspiration,  "  The  day  of  the  Lord  will  come,"—*,  truth  at 
once  repeated  by  every  writer  in  the  New  Testament. 

There  will  be  a  General  Judgment,  a  period  when  all  men 
will  be  judged,  because  it  is  the  universal  teaching  of  the 
Bible.  Because  man  is  in  a  state  of  trial  as  a  race.  There- 
fore he  must  be  judged  as  a  race,  hence  a  General  Judgment. 


THE   DAY   OF  JUDGMENT.  193 

And  as  judgment  cannot  precede  trial,  it  must  be  in  the 
future  ;  because  all  things  were  made  for  God's  glory.  Such 
is  the  teaching  of  the  Bible.  Then  from  the  nature  of  God, 
and  the  relation  all  created  being  sustains  to  Him,  it  is 
clearly  presumptive  that  the  chief  end  of  all  things  objectively 
by  the  Divine  intention  was  to  glorify  Him.  God  is  glorified 
when  anything  He  has  made  carries  out  the  design  He  had 
in  the  making.  God  is  glorified  when  the  principles  of  His 
government  are  maintained,  though  it  may  involve  the  defeat 
of  some  of  His  designs  by  the  unlawful  action  of  some  intelli- 
gent moral  agent.  But  God  is  more  powerfully  glorified 
when  intelligent  beings  whom  He  has  made,  who  are  capa- 
ble of «thinking,  investigating,  reasoning,  and  acting  for  them- 
selves, voluntarily  bear  witness  to  the  integrity  of  His  char- 
acter, and  the  rectitude  of  His  administration.  Good  men 
may  glorify  God  in  this  sense  in  the  absence  of  all  knowledge 
of  the  character  and  principles  of  the  administration  of  His 
government  by  faith,  but  demons  and  wicked  men  would  not. 
In  fact  faith  ceases  to  perform  the  functions  of  such  an  office 
at  the  expiration  of  the  mediation  of  Christ  in  the  practical 
redemption  of  sinners. 

To  secure  the  united  voice  of  the  intelligent  universe  in 
glorifying  God,  there  must  be  a  thorough  and  perfect  exposi- 
tion of  the  entire  administration  of  God  affecting  men  ;  and 
which  from  the  necessity  of  the  case  could  not  be  made  with- 
out the  publication  of  every  thought,  word,  and  action,  com- 
mitted by  the  human  family.  Again  the  will  of  God  is  only 
realized  in  the  perfect.  The  earth,  the  surrounding  heavens, 
are  not  perfect.  If  perfect,  there  would  not  be  leagues  of 
barren  sand,  and  smothering  bogs ;  continents  of  ice,  and 
districts  of  sterility.  If  perfect,  the  conjunction  of  natural 
causes  would  not  be  so  imperfect,  that  plants  would  bud 
before  frosts  cease,  and  frosts  come  before  plants  mature. 

Geology  teaches  us  that  the  earth  has  passed  through 
9 


194  SERMONS. 

many  epochs,  every  one  precipitating  it  towards  perfection. 
Every  epoch  has  involved  the  change  or  destruction  of  the 
living  creatures  inhabiting  it — others  taking  their  places  better 
adapted  every  way  to  its  improved  condition.  If  it  is  not 
yet  perfect ,  and  the  will  of  God  is  only  realized  in  the  per- 
fect, this  in  connection  with  the  precursory  changes  every- 
where apparent,  points  to  a  coming  geological  epoch^which 
will  certainly  change  the  destiny  of  the  creatures  now  inhab- 
iting it — and  is  presumptive  evidence  of  the  General  Judg- 
ment— involving  the  end  of  man's  probation  as  a  race*and 
his  introduction  into  a  higher  state,  and  the  attending  geo- 
logical phenomena  described  in  the  Bible. 

III.  The  manner  of  His  coming. — "The  day  of  the  Lord 
will  come  as  a  thief  in  the  night — i.  e.  unexpectedly  to  us. 
Men  know  not  when  it  is.  Says  Christ,  in  "an  hour  when 
ye  think  not."  Do  you  think  he  will  come  now?  That 
condition  is  fulfilled — unexpectedly.  Hear  Christ :  "  But  of 
that  day  and  that  hour  knoweth  no  man,  no,  not  the  angels 
which  are  in  Heaven,  neither  the  Son,  but  the  Father.  Take 
ye  heed,  watch  and  pray  :  for  ye  know  not  when  the  time  is. 
For  the  Son  of  man  is  as  a  man  taking  a  far  journey,  who 
left  his  house,  and  gave  authority  to  his  servants,  and  to 
every  man  his  work,  and  commanded  the  porter  to  watch. 
"Watch  ye  therefore ;  for  ye  know  not  when  the  Master  of 
the  house  cometh,  at  even,  or  at  midnight,  or  at  the  cock- 
crowing,  or  in  the  morning ;  Lest  coming  suddenly,  he  find 
you  sleeping.  And  what  I  say  unto  you,  I  say  unto  all, 
Watch." 

You  say  the  Judgment  will  not  come  now,  for  Christ  says, 
"  This  gospel  of  the  Kingdom  shall  be  preached  in  all  the 
world  for  a  witness  unto  all  nations ;  and  then  shall  the  end 
come,"  and  this  is  not  fulfilled.  The  end  spoken  of  in  the 
verse  which  should  come,  means  the  end  of  the  Jewish 
Nationality — not  the  end  of  the  world.     You  answer,  the 


THE  DAY   OF  JUDGMENT.  195 

Gospel  was  not  preached  "in  all  the  world  "  before  the  final 
destruction  of  the  Jewish  nationality,  which  happened  a.d. 
70.  But  Paul  says  it  was.  In  Col.  x.  23,  eight  years  before 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Romans,  he  writes  :  "  Be 
not  moved  away  from  the  hope  of  the  gospel,  which  ye  have 
heard,  and  which  was  preached  to  every  creature  which  is 
under  heaven." 

Very  often  in  the  Bible  the  whole  is  put  for  a  part.  The 
Roman  Empire,  the  small  part  of  the  world  with  which  they 
were  acquainted,  was  called  all  the  world.  "  All  countries 
came  into  Egypt  ....  to  buy  corn."  Let  the  Bible  explain 
itself  and  there  is  no  difficulty.  When  Christ  said  the  "  Gos- 
pel ....  shall  be  preached  in  all  the  world,"  before  the 
coming  of  a  certain  event,  we  understand  him  to  mean  to  the 
Jews  and  surrounding  nations  ;  we  then  can  clearly  under- 
stand what  Paul  meant  when  he  said  the  Gospel  "  was 
preached  to  every  creature  .  .  .  .  under  heaven."  Upon  any 
other  Scriptural  exegesis  we  are  involved  in  difficulties  from 
which  there  is  no  extrication.  Take  it  any  way,  the  prophecy 
is  no  objection  to  the  Judgment  coming  now. 

IV.  Let  us  consider  the  vast  changes  in  the  Divine  Gov- 
ernment, the  events  of  such  a  day  will  produce.  //  will  end 
the  administration  of  the  Kingdom  of  Grace. 

This  whole  system  in  its  magnificent  embodiment  is  am- 
brotyped,  unified  and  epitomized  in  man  the  microcosm. 
He  is  a  material  being,  and,  as  such,  is  under  material  laws 
and  material  government.  He  is  a  spiritual  being,  and,  as 
such,  he  is  under  spiritual  laws  and  spiritual  government. 
He  is  a  moral  being,  and  as  such  he  is  under  moral  law,  and 
moral  government.  The  unity  of  God  duplicated  itself  in 
the  unity  of  His  system  ;  the  unity  of  His  system  duplicated 
itself  in  the  unity  of  man.  Man  is  therefore  the  counterpart 
of  God  in  miniature.  Man's  relations  to  God,  and  God's 
system  are  of  the  most  intimate  and  sympathetic  character. 


196  SERMONS. 

Now,  sin  affected  man  and  disturbed  the  unity  of  his  entire 
being,  and  made  the  conjunction  of  all  material,  spiritual, 
and  moral  causes  so  unnatural,  as  to  disjoint  and  disorganize 
all  his  parts  and  powers,  and  pile  them  in  a  wasted  ruin, 
which  made  angels  weep.  Man's  relations  to  the  system  of 
God  were  such  that  his  ruin  affected  the  whole.  Having  in 
his  constitution  the  essential  links  to  the  system  of  God,  and 
sin  severing  these,  the  whole  system  commenced  disuniting, 
and  a  howl  of  horror  ran  along  the  pathway  of  every  orb^and 
echoed  and  reverberated  amid  the  trembling  arches  of  uni- 
versal being. 

To  prevent  universal  ruin  God  must  cast  sin  out  of  His 
system,  and  grasp  the  dissevered  cords  binding  the  whole 
into  a  unity  and  cement  them  again.  God's  system  consti- 
tuted an  ellipse  of  which  God  and  man  were  the  foci.  All 
cords  of  unity  proceeded  from  God  by  divergence,  and 
united  in  man  by  convergence.  Man  being  a  focus,  his  de- 
struction affected  the  whole.  God  must  unite  all  relations 
again  in  their  appropriate  focus.  Hence,  man  was  to  be 
restored. 

To  accomplish  this,  God  established  a  dispensation  of 
Grace,  the  appropriate  form  of  the  recuperative  power  of 
His  system,  having  for  its  object  the  redemption  of  man.  A 
levelled,  balanced  scheme  whirling  around  a  centre,  and  that 
centre  a  cross,  and  that  cross  consecrated  by  a  victim,  and 
that  victim  the  propitiary  sacrifice  for  the  world.  That  sys- 
tem of  grace  was  founded  upon  the  mediation  of  Christ. 

The  characteristics  of  this  system  of  Grace  are  pardon  and 
salvation.  It  is  the  only  thing  which  can  pardon.  Law  can- 
not pardon.  Justice  cannot  pardon  in  the  absence,  of  satis- 
faction. This  scheme  working  commensurate  with  law  and 
working  to  a  great  destiny. 

But,  when  the  day  of  judgment  comes,  Christ  will  close 
the  book  of  mercy,  lay  aside  the  sacerdotal  garments,  wind 


THE   DAY   OF  JUDGMENT.  197 

up  the  period  of  grace,  and  come  as  the  Judge  of  men,  not 
as  their  Saviour.  The  sinner  may  then  fall  upon  his  knees, 
and  with  streaming  eyes  lift  his  hands  to  heaven,  and  plead 
for  pardon  and  salvation,  but  the  mediatorial  Kingdom  of 
Christ  will  be  at  an  end,  the  dispensation  of  grace  will  be 
finished,  and  mercy  will  be  clean  gone  forever.  In  place  of 
the  smiling  face  of  a  sympathetic  Saviour,  the  stern  brow  and 
angry  eye  of  an  awful  Judge  will  fill  his  soul  with  horrorsTtill 
fleeing  into  the  gorges  of  the  quaking  earth,  and  clambering 
amid  her  rocking  crags,  with  expectant  earnestness  they  will 
cry  out  to  the  frowning  granite  and  towering  slate,  to  tottei 
and  fall  upon  them  and  hide  them  from  the  face  of  Him  who 
sitteth  upon  the  throne  forever  and  forever. 

It  will  end  the  dispensations  of  Providence  with  reference 
to  man  as  a  creature  on  probation.  Under  the  administra- 
tion of  Divine  Providence  in  this  world,  all  events,  all  causes 
— natural,  moral,  casual — all  effects,  are  subordinated  to 
carry  out  the  design  of  Christ's  mediation,  the  salvation  of 
man.  For  this  all  Providential  agencies  walk,  fly,  revolve, 
and  act.  To  this  all  its  dispensations,  however  wide  and 
mysterious  they  are  in  their  sweep,  tend  and  converge  in 
focal  glory. 

But  when  the  throne  of  Judgment  descends,  the  chariot 
of  Providence  will  ascend.  As  the  one  will  sweep  upward, 
the  other  will  descend  in  fiery  grandeur.  They  will  meet 
above  the  stars.  As  the  one  will  sweep  over  flowery  plains 
to  the  Throne  of  God,  the  other  will  roll  along  the  moun- 
tain tops  jarring  all  the  earth.  And  the  sinner  when  con- 
demned to  dwell  in  inextinguishable  fires,  will  learn  by  sad 
experience  that  the  punishments  of  hell  are  not  corrective, 
but  penal. 

It  will  end  human  probation.  Men  are  in  a  state  of  trial. 
They  are  the  architects  of  their  own  fortunes.  This  is  the 
state   of  preparation.      Heaven   above,   hell  below,  and   a 


I98  SERMONS. 

mediocral  earth  the  stage.  Probation  will  end,  and  destiny 
will  be  unalterably,  and  irrevocably  fixed. 

V.  Let  us  examine  some  of  the  characteristics  and  facts 
of  that  day.  The  trump  of  God  will  sound,  the  dead  will  be 
raised,  and  the  Judge  attended  by  legions  of  angels  will  come 
with  a  shout,  and  be  met  in  mid-air  by  the  righteous  ascend- 
ing with  a  shout ;  and  the  earth  and  the  heavens  afire  will  flee 
from  His  presence. 

The  text  says,  "  The  heavens  shall  pass  away  with  a 
great  noise,  and  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat, 
the  earth  also  and  the  works  that  are  therein  shall  be  burned 
up."  "The  heavens  shall  pass  away  with  a  great  noise." 
The  heavens  here  mean  the  earth's  surrounding  atmosphere, 
and  not  the  whole  material  universe.  The  destruction  of 
the  universe  identically  with  the  destruction  of  this  earth  is 
not  taught  in  the  Bible. 

Owing  to  the  vast  chemical  changes  which  must  take  place 
in  the  earth  and  atmosphere  to  sustain  the  description  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  text,  the  sun  may  appear  to  grow  dark, 
the  moon  may  look  like  blood,  and  the  stars  appear  to  fall ; 
but  the  descriptions  of  such  phenomena  in  the  Bible  are 
splendid  figures,  always  having  reference  to  the  end  of  king- 
doms and  pseudo-religions,  and  not  to  the  General  Judgment. 

The  atmosphere  will  be  so  affected  by  heat,  and  have  so 
many  gases  thrown  into  it  from  a  burning  world,  as  probably 
to  destroy  its  character  as  a  medium  for  the  transmission  of 
light,  and  the  Sun  may  appear  darkened,  and  the  Moon  may 
look  red  like  blood,  and  inflammable  hydrogen  and  other  gases 
liberated  by  heat  uniting  with  oxygen  of  the  atmosphere, 
the  highest  supporter  of  combustion  known,  may  produce 
meteoric  coruscations  filling  the  air,  resembling  falling  stars 
— also  verifying  the  declaration  of  the  text. in  causing  the 
heavens  to  "  pass  away  with  a  great  noise."  Such  would  be 
the  natural  effect  of  such  chemical  action. 


THE  DAY   OF  JUDGMENT.  199 

Again,  "  The  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat,  the 
earth  also  and  the  works  that  are  therein  shall  be  burned 
up."  The  elements,  or  first  principles  of  nature,  which  can- 
not be  burned  up,  the  text  says  shall  be  melted.  This  may 
refer  to  that  portion  of  the  globe  which  has  already  been 
oxydized  or  burned,  therefore  could  only  be  melted  then. 
But  the  combustible  matter  of  the  globe,  the  surface  of  its 
continents,  its  mountains,  with  all  the  splendid  works  of  art 
scattered  over  its  surface,  will  be  "  burned  up  " — the  whole 
globe  will  probably  be  a  globe  of  fused  rock. 

French  astronomers  say  that,  in  the  last  three  hundred 
years,  fifteen  hundred  fixed  stars,  at  least,  have  disappeared 
from  the  firmament.  A  European  astronomer  says  that 
a  brilliant  star  which  on  account  of  its  peculiar  radiance 
had  been  an  object  of  his  especial  and  daily  observation  for 
several  months,  paled  gradually  and  finally  disappeared. 
Another  astronomer  describes  a  star  as  "  of  a  dazzling  white, 
next  of  a  glowing  red  and  yellow  lustre,  and  finally  it  became 
pale  and  ash-colored,"  then  vanished.  He  attributes  the  de- 
struction of  the  star  to  fire,  and  says  that  it  was  burning  sixteen 
months.  The  fifty-seven  Asteroids,  revolving  along  irregu- 
lar orbits  frequently  decussating  each  other  between  Mars 
and  Jupiter,  are  thought  to  be  the  fragments  of  a  large  and 
exploded  sphere.  That  stars  and  planets  have  been  burned 
or  torn  to  pieces  by  internal  fires  I  have  no  doubt,  but  that 
they  were  annihilated  is  unphilosophic. 

Now,  the  earth  contains  the  elements  of  its  own  destruc- 
tion : — Latent  fire  is  slumbering  in  all  nature — In  descend- 
ing into  the  earth  every  forty-five  feet,  heat  increases  one 
degree  Fahr.  In  the  same  ratio,  at  the  depth  of  sixty  miles 
every  known  rock  would  be  melted — The  very  form  of  the 
earth  as  an  oblate-spheroid  shows  that  it  was  once  in  a  state 
of  fusion — Three  hundred  active  volcanoes  belching  thunders 
forged  in  subterraneous  fires  are  terrific  witnesses — Ridges, 


200  SERMONS. 

mountains,  continents,  disjointed  strata,  bespeak  internal  fires 
— Some  dynamic  power  is  elevating  islands  continually. 
One  arose  this  year  in  the  Grecian  Archipelago — The  organic 
remains  of  animals  and  plants  indicate  that  in  the  earlier 
ages  of  the  earth  its  temperature  was  warmer — The  ancient 
heathens  believed  there  were  internal  fires,  but  they  were  the 
fires  of  Vulcan's  forges  where  the  Cyclops  worked,  of  which 
volcanoes  were  the  chimneys — What  an  ocean  of  fire  !  nearly 
eight  thousand  miles  in  diameter,  enclosed  in  a  cyst  only 
sixty  miles  in  thickness.  Let  God  but  remove  the  counter- 
vailing agencies ;  let  Him  but  unchain  it,  and  earth's  primor- 
dial fires  will  rend  the  feeble  crust,  and  pour  their  cataclysms 
of  flame  along  the  mountain  gorges,  and  leaping  will  kiss 
away  the  shiny  glaciers  cresting  mountain  towers,  and  moun- 
tains and  continents  will  sink  in  one  melted  mass  of  liquid 
rock.  Other  stars  will  see  the  fire*  and  speculate  on  the  phe- 
nomenon. 

Fire  does  not  annihilate,  it  only  changes  the  form  of  mat- 
ter. The  earth  purified  by  fire  will  constitute  a  new  geolo- 
gical substratum  upon  which  God  will  doubtlessly  rear  a  more 
splendid  creation ;  for  says  the  text  there  shall  be  a  "  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness." 
This  old  earth  will  be  changed,  and  the  change  will  be  so 
radical,  that  it  is  called  a  "new  earth.'''  A  new  earth  be- 
cause of  its  geological  changes — There  will  be  no  more  sea 
— deserts — bogs — sterile  districts. — Diamond  is  crystallized 
carbon  ;  charcoal  is  carbon ;  there  is  carbon  in  the  stone, 
carbon  in  the  earth,  carbon  in  the  leaf,  everywhere.  The 
fire  may  crystallize  it  all  into  diamond — A  new  earth  because 
of  its  zoological  changes — A  new  earth  because  of  its  moral 
changes. 

But  the  earth  and  heavens  afire  .will  flee  from  the  presence 
of  the  descending  Judge,  and  His  throne  will  be  set  in  space, 
to  Judge  both  angels  and  men.     Every  angel  in  the  universe 


THE   DAY   OF  JUDGMENT.  201 

will  be  there.  Heaven  will  be  emptied.  Millions  of  spheres 
will  be  deserted  by  their  ministering  spirits.  They  will 
crowd  all  space  in  their  lightning  flight  to  the  throne  of  the 
Man  of  Calvary,  the  Jehovah  of  the  patriarchs.  Hell  will 
open  its  hideous  mouth,  and  its  blackened  legions  will  come 
tramping  out  of  its  dungeons,  darkening  the  ether  in  their  as- 
cent to  the  Judgment  seat. 

Every  son  and  daughter  of  our  apostate  race  will  be  there. 
There  are  twelve  hundred  millions  of  people  now  living. 
The  future  plus  may  balance  the  past  minus,  and  then  it  may 
average  that  number  every  age.  Aggregate  the  ages,  and  we 
may  have  a  number  infinite  to  human  calculation.  And  pos- 
sibly the  representatives  of  a  thousand  worlds  may  be  there. 

How  strangely  mixed !  Antediluvians,  postdiluvians, 
Asiatics,  Caucasians,  Africans,  Indians.  All  types,  Japhetic, 
Hamitic,  Shemitic.  All  languages,  all  fashions,  all  ages. 
There  will  be  Michael,  tallest  angel  in  heaven's  hierarchy, 
with  his  brilliant  train.  There  will  be  the  fallen  Lucifer,  with 
his  ruined  third  of  heaven's  host.  O,  the  throng  of  living 
creatures  !  flatten  the  earth,  and  there  would  not  be  room  to 
stand — every  inch  filled.     He  looks  at  me. 

All  will  be  there  to  be  judged  according  to  law.  What 
Law  ?  the  great  moral  law  of  the  universe.  The  distinctions" 
made  in  our  text  books,  that  the  heathen  will  be  judged  by 
the  law  of  conscience,  the  Jews  by  the  law  of  Moses,  and 
Christians  by  the  Gospel,  are  all  unscriptural  and  absurd. 
The  passages  of  Scripture  quoted  to  prove  these  distinctions 
only  teach  that  men  will  be  judged  as  they  know  the  law, 
and  in  proportion  as  they  know  it,  or  having  opportunity  for 
doing  so.  Adamic  law,  and  mosaic  law,  are  about  as  sensi- 
ble as  Bascom  law  or  Whitefield  law,  because  those  men  were 
under  it  or  expounded  it.  And  as  to  gospel  law  there  is  no 
such  thing.  Men  will  no  more  be  judged  by  the  Gospel  than 
they  will  be  judged  by  their  mother's  prayers— they  will  both 
9* 


202  SERMONS. 

enter  into  judgment  as  blessings  for  the  use  or  abuse  of 
which  we  will  have  to  account. 

God  only  has  one  law,  and  it  is  the  one  law  of  love,  en- 
joining everything  which  love  would  naturally  enjoin,  and 
forbidding  everything  which  love  from  its  nature  would  for- 
bid. All  other  commandments  given  are  but  the  manifesta- 
tions of  this  law.  This  law  requires  perfect  obedience,  per- 
fect love.  And  as  man  is  under  a  dispensation  of  grace 
which  imparts  to  him  an  ability  to  keep  the  law,  an  importa- 
tion equal  to  the  obligation  of  law,  he  will  be  judged  for  its 
every  infraction  whether  great  or  small. 

A  man  will  be  judged  by  the  law  of  God,  he  will  be  judged 
for  everything  to  which  the  obligation  of  law  extends.  He 
will  therefore  be  judged  for  his  Intentions — Intentions  give 
character  to  action,  and  cannot  be  ruled  out  of  judgment. 
Beliefs — Religious  beliefs  are  voluntary,  therefore  come  un- 
der law  and  enter  into  judgment.  Men  are  required  to  be- 
lieve the  truth.  Belief  that  poison  will  not  hurt  you  will  not 
save  you  from  its  evil  effects.  Principles — Principles  are  the 
sources  of  action,  and  if  men  are  accountable  for  their 
actions,  they  must  be  accountable  for  their  principles. 
Thoughts — Thoughts  are  spoken  of  in  the  Bible  as  good  or 
evil,  if  so  they  are  under  law,  and  as  such  must  be  accounted 
for  in  the  judgment.  "  The  thought  of  foolishness  is  sin." 
How  fearful  our  account,  when  myriads  of  sinful  thoughts, 
year  by  year,  travel  every  path  in  the  complicate  network 
of  our  intelligence,  hardening  the  character  by  the  tramp 
of  their  feet,  and  darkening  it  with  the  dust  of  their  smoky 
trail.  Imaginations — many  spend  nearly  all  their  time  amid 
the  idealities,  shades,  and  chimeras  of  an  idle  imagination. 
They  climb  mountains  of  dissolving  fog,  and  skim  over 
shadowy  plains,  and  revel  with  weird  spectrums,  and  fleec- 
ing dreams.  Oneirus  never  paraded  a  more  gorgeous  pa- 
geantry of  visions  before  the  mind  of  a  sleeper.     There  can 


THE  DAY   OF  JUDGMENT.  203 

be  no  objection  to  a  bold  and  intrepid  imagination.  It 
would  be  wrong  to  cage  it.  Let  it  fly  !  Let  it  sweep  with 
daring  wings  along  all  the  paths  of  space.  Let  it  walk  the 
bottom  of  the  sea — walk  among  the  clouds — career  amid  the 
stars — fold  its  wings  upon  the  battlemented  walls  of  the  city 
of  God.  Let  it  kneel  at  the  foot  of  Deity,  or  hang  with 
weeping  pinions  over  Calvary — but- let  it  not  prostitute  the 
soul  in  the  realms  of  folly.  Affections — God's  law  tells  us 
what  we  must  love,  and  to  what  degree.  Words — Good  or 
evil.  Idle  words,  "But  I  say  unto  you  that  every  idle 
word  ....  for  by  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  justified,  and  by 
thy  words  thou  shalt  be  condemned."  Actions — Influences 
— Good  things — Evil  things — Facilities — Ad  van  tages  — This 
sermon. 

The  Books  shall  be  opened.  This  is  a  figure.  A  book 
of  law — a  book  of  accounts.  As  everything  is  recorded  in 
a  book  it  is  impossible  that  God  should  forget  anything 
which  ever  occurred.  From  the  laws  of  the  intellect  and 
the  phenomena  of  intellectual  action  under  certain  circum- 
stances, we  conclude  that  the  intellect  of  man  possesses  the 
power  of  reproducing  to  the  consciousness  everything  upon 
which  the  attention  was  once  fixed.  The  Books  of  life  and 
death  will  also  be  opened.  This  is  a  figure.  The  Book  of 
Death  will  be  opened.  Those  whose  names  are  written  in 
its  long  catalogue,  will,  with  the  announcement  of  their  names, 
take  their  places  upon  the  left  hand  of  the  Judge.  The 
Book  of  Life  will  be  opened.  Its  pages  will  gleam  in  the 
light  of  the  Judgment.  The  names  of  the  redeemed  written 
with  the  blood  of  Jesus  will  be  announced.  As  each  name 
is  heard  a  face  brightens,  till  when  the  list  is  complete,  the 
book  closed,  and  all  the  elect  are  posited  on  the  right  hand 
of  the  throne,  the  aggregated  light  of  countenances  whose 
numbers  trample  upon  all  enumeration,  will  form  a  sea  of 
waving  light.     It  will  seem  as  if  Aurora  had   forgotten    her 


204  SERMONS. 

Elysium  bowers  and  flew  away  to  the  Judgment  upon  wings 
of  coruscant  silver,  and  flung  out  her  flaunting  banners  of 
dawning  light,  wide-streaming,  dropping  from  every  fold  of 
their  sweeping  circumferenceuthe  mellow  glories  of  Paradise. 

A  line  is  drawn  separating  angels  from  devils,  separating 
husband  and  wife,  parents  and  children — a  line  drawn  through 
nearly  all  the  families  of  earth,  an  Abel  on  this  side,  a  Cain 
on  that  side.  Here  and  there  a  few  families  together,  both 
on  the  right  and  left.  They  are  separated  forever.  A  tem- 
porary separation  from  them  we  love  is  painful.  But  this 
will  be  a  separation  forever — forever.     Save  your  children. 

Let  us  walk  along  both  lines.  Upon  the  left  are  all  unbe- 
lievers, idolaters,  murderers,  drunkards,  robbers,  adulterers, 
blasphemers,  liars,  slanderers,  misers,  worldly-minded,  hypo- 
crites, lukewarm  professors,  apostates,  and  ministers  recreant 
to  their  trust — ministers  who  worked  too  little,  neglected  to 
feed  the  sheep,  preached  themselves.  Let  us  walk  along 
this  line  again.  Here  are  kings,  heroes,  statesmen,  and 
scholars — Parents  and  their  children.  Here  are  women. 
The  seraphs  of  our  households  who  entwined  the  sweet 
fibres  of  their  love  around  our  hearts,  torn  away,  each  fibre 
snapping,  and  cast  among  the  vile. 

Every  heart  in  this  vast  throng  massed  and  crowded  upon 
each  other  is  breaking  with  sorrow,  every  face  is  coursed  by 
tears,  every  countenance  is  pale  with  horror — the  die  is  cast 
and  cast  forever.  They  gazed  upon  each  other — the  ruined 
mother  upon  'her  ruined  son,  the  wretched  daughter  gazing 
upon  the  affrighted  face  and  quivering  lip  of  a  father  doubly 
wretched  because  his  daughter  is  so — gazing  they  shudder 
with  anguish  and  terror.  They  cast  a  despairing  look  at  the 
other  side.  In  unalterable  misery  they  groan — altogether 
groan  from  front  to  rear,  from  centre  to  circumference,  till 
the  terrified  stars  weep  over  their  heads,  and  hell' growls 
beneath  them,  the  thunder  of  their  woe  pealing  amid  all  of 


THE  DAY   OF  JUDGMENT.  205 

its   empty   caves    soon    to   be  crowded  with  shrieking   mil- 
lions. 

But  let  us  walk  along  the  other  line.     Upon  the  right  are 
widows  and  orphans  escaped  from   their  widowhood  and  or- 
phanage, for  God  is  their  husband  and  father  ;  persecuted 
maidens  wearing  in  their  tresses  flowers  plucked  by  an  angel 
from  the  garden  of  God  ;  the  Lord's  poor  now  are  rich  m 
treasures  imperishable  ;  ministers  with  stars  in  their  crowns; 
old  men  and  matrons  no  longer  gray ;  Patriarchs  and  proph- 
ets, martyrs  and  reformers-all  Christians.     Jesus  has  well 
kept  His  promise,  "  Whosoever  shall  confess  me  before  men, 
him  will  I  confess  also  before  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven." 
The  work  is  done.     The  Judge  arises.     His  throne  be- 
comes another  Sinai.     The  fires  of  His  wrath,  and  the  light- 
nings of  His  power,  blend  in  fearful  grandeur.     The  batteries 
of  Divine  Justice  rock  and  bellow  while  their,  emptied  thun- 
ders tear  through   the  shivering  throng  and  burst  in  awful 
ruin      His   sword  is  unsheathed-the  stars  stand  back  be- 
yond   its    sweep,    its    edge    glimmering   fire-"  Depart    ye 
cursed  into   the   Hell  you  have  usurped,  prepared  for  the 
Devil  and  his  angels."     The  Nemeses  of  the  Divine  wrath 
will   lift    their  burning  scourges,  and  before  their  impetuous 
charge  both  devils  and  men  will  fly  howling  from  the  judg- 
ment. seat-FAREWELL  God-and   the   tempests  of    Gods 
retribution    overtaking  them  in  their  flight,  they  fall  !  fall !  I 
fall  ! !  !— The  dungeons  of  woe  are  bolted-and  the  eternity 
of  their  night  sets  in.  , 

His  sword  is  sheathed.  The  tempests  float  from  His 
throne.  The  brightness  of  an  approving  smile  rests  now  upon 
His  brow.  Angels  reflect  it ;  saints  reflect  it  ;  the  relaxing 
brow  of  Justice  reflects  it;  the  sweet  face  of  Mercy  reflects 
it;  the  new  earth  rolling  in  sight  reflects  it-"  Come  ye 
blessed  "-The  throne  of  the  Judge  wheels  into  the  front- 
its   muttering   thunders  now  playing   the    sweetest  music- 


206  SERMONS. 

"  Come,"  and  angels  and  archangels,  and  families  and 
friends,  fall  into  grand  procession,  and  the  magnificent 
pageant  sweeps  into  the  heavens,  rises  above  the  stars,  and 
the  choral  thunders  of  the  coronation  anthem  of  Christ  ring 
against  the  arches  of  the  universe. 


V 


SERMON   XVII. 

THE    LAST   WORDS   OF    JESUS. 
"It  is  finished."— John  xix.  30. 

THE  text  is  short,  but  it  records  the  end  of  the  grandest 
and  most  momentous  tragedy  ever  enacted  in  this 
sin-scarred,  sin- cursed  world.  It  is  the  conclusion  of  a  drama 
whose  opening  scene  is  a  withered  garden,  a  forbidden  tree, 
a  subtle  tempter,  an  angry  God,  a  fallen  pair — sweeping  on 
in  solemn  array  till  the  whole  culminated  in  the  horrors  of 
Calvary.  These  were  the  last  words  of  Jesus  upon  the  cross, 
and  like  everything  else  which  fell  from  His  lips  have  a 
weighty  significance.  The  life,  death,  resurrection,  ascen- 
sion, and  intercession  of  Christ,  are  all  more  or  less  neces- 
sary to  the  perfection  of  redemption  in  its  totality,  as  an 
effectual  scheme  for  the  salvation  of  sinners.  His  sufferings 
and  death  constitute  the  sacrificial  part.  The  text  is  the 
authoritative  chronicle  of  the  completion  of  sacrificial  re- 
demption. This  is  the  meaning  of  the  text,  and  the  only 
meaning.  To  evolve  the  significance  of  the  fact  recorded  in 
the  text,  it  is  necessary  to  notice  the  effect  of  the  fact  upon 
the  phenomena  of  the  OJd  Dispensation.  The  finishing  of 
sacrificial  redemption  implied  the  finishing : 

I.  The  Providential  work  of  the  Jewish  nation.  The  en- 
tire history  of  the  Jews  from  the  call  of  Abraham  to  their 
final  dispersion  under  Vespasian  Caesar  was  providential,  and 
with  reference  to  one  end  ;  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise 


208  SERMONS. 

made  in  the  beginning,  that  the  seed  of  the  woman  should 
bruise  the  serpent's  head.  Man  was  so  deeply  fallen,  his 
moral  nature  was  so  corrupt,  the  development  of  mind 
marked  off  so  low  a  degree  upon  the  scale  of  mental  excel- 
lency, human  language  was  so  imperfect,  the  facilities  for  the 
transmission  of  truth  were  so  few,  and  the  age  being  antece- 
dent to  the  dawn  of  accredited  history,  the  subject  of  this 
promise  could  not  make  His  appearance  in  the  earlier  ages 
of  the  world.  Some  initiatory  process  was  necessary  to  pre- 
pare the  mind  of  the  world  to  receive  salvation  by  media- 
tion, involving  sacrifice  and  intercession,  the  only  plan  where- 
by men  could  be  saved  at  all.  Religion  as  a  system  of 
truth,  could  only  be  received  by  the  human  mind  gradually. 
The  elementary  principles  must  first  be  taught  and  embraced, 
then  the  mind  according  to  its  own  laws  must  advance  step 
by  step  to  the  acquisition  of  the  whole. 

To  have  a  general  notion  of  the  whole  system  is  necessary 
to  understand  any  part  of  it.  It  could  only  be  revealed  in 
parts.  Hence,  if  God  had  not  resorted  to  some  especial 
and  supernatural  means  to  take  care  of  these  parts,  revealed 
in  advance  of  the  perfection  of  the  whole  system,  and  which 
therefore  were  incomprehensible,  they  would  have  been  ex- 
pelled from  the  attention  of  mankind,  and  lost  in  the  almost 
endless  vicissitudes  of  human  history.  It  was  necessary  that 
these  parts  should  be  preserved  in  the  world  until  the  other 
parts  could  be  added,  and  the  system  finished.  In  other 
words  it  was  necessary  that  religion  should  be  nursed  in  its 
infancy,  till  maturity,  when  in  some  kind  of  sense  it  could 
take  care  of  itself. 

When  mankind  multiplied  their  lives  were  shortened,  and 
the  intervening  years  between  them  and  Adam  who  walked 
and  talked  with  God  increased,  tradition  became  an  unsafe 
channel  for  the  transmission  of  the  few  principles  of  religion 
then  known,  and  God  selected  one  family,  one  nation,  as  the 


THE   LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  20Q 

retainer  of  the  elementary  principles  of  religion,  till  accord 
ing  to  the  reason  and  nature  of  the  thing  the  whole  could  be 
perfected  by  the  advent  of  the  world's  Redeemer — by  His 
life,  sufferings,  and  death.  The  Jews  were  the  nation  selected 
by  God  for  so  responsible  a  purpose.  "  Unto  them,"  says 
Paul,  "were  committed  the  oracles  of  God."  The  national- 
ity of  the  Jews  was  to  be  a  fixed  fact  then,  till  the  Messiah 
came.  So  much  is  implied  in  the  prophetic  blessing  of  Jacob 
pronounced  upon  Judah  the  father  of  the  tribe  denominated 
"Jews,"  of  which  Christ  was  to  come:  "The  sceptre  shall 
not  depart  from  Judah,  nor  a  lawgiver  from  between  his  feet 
till  Shiloh  come." 

For  a  nationality  to  remain  permanent  and  fixed  among 
the  revolutions  of  earth,  and  to  be  able  to  withstand  the 
pressure  of  outside  influences  continually  bearing  upon  it, 
several  things  in  the  construction  of  the  nationality  are  neces- 
sary :  1.  Its  government  must  be  a  unity.  2.  The  constitu- 
tion of  the  government  must  be  so  perfect  as  not  to  fall  below 
the  mental  and  social  status  of  the  people,  as  they  advance 
in  civilization.  3.  Its  government  must  be  such  as  not  to 
impede  the  advance  of  its  people  in  the  grand  march  of  pro- 
gressive civilization.  4.  Its  government  must  not  be  so  far 
in  advance  of  the  people  as  not  to  be  adapted  to  their  mental 
and  social  infancy.  5.  The  elements  of  the  nationality 
itself  must  be  homogeneous— indeed  they  must  have  a  kind 
of  elective  affinity  for  each  other.  The  people  themselves 
must  have  common  tendencies  of  character,  a  unity  of  inter- 
ests, and  a  common  religion.  6.  The  nationality  must  be 
isolated  from  the  other  nationalities  of  earth.  God's  provi- 
dence over  the  Jews  formed  their  nationality  according  to 
these  laws. 

1.  Their  government  was  a  unity  because  it  was  theocra- 
tic, and  God  is  essentially  and  necessarily  a  unity.  To  phi- 
losophically elaborate  and  illustrate  this  proposition  is  unne 


210  SERMONS. 

cessary,  as  it  will  be  received  as  truth  from  the  mere  state- 
ment. 

2.  Their  government  being  theocratic  it  was  perfect, 
therefore  never  liable  to  be  outstripped  by  the  people  in 
their  advance  along  the  highway  of  civilization.  And  to  a 
universal  theocracy  the  mind  of  the  world  is  directed  in  the 
Bible  as  the  final  and  fixed  result  into  which  the  issues  of 
Providence  and  grace  will  ultimate.  To  establish  such  a 
theocracy  is  the  reason  of  the  action  of  all  providential  and 
redemptive  agents  and  dispensations.  And  till  all  govern- 
ments are  resolved  into  a  theocracy  they  will  never  cease  rev- 
olutionizing. God  in  Christ  is  to  be  the  King  of  the  world, 
and  a  pure  theocracy  is  to  be  the  government  of  mankind. 

3.  Their  government  being  theocratic  it  did  not,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  impede,  but  rather  promote  the  action  of  every 
element  in  a  healthy  and  advancing  civilization.  This  is 
evident  from  the  wisdom,  goodness,  and  holiness  of  God, 
and  the  constitution  and  nature  of  their  government  as  given 
to  us  in  the  Bible. 

4.  To  prevent  their  government  from  being  so  far  in  ad- 
vance of  the  people  as  not  be  adapted  to  them,  the  people 
were  prepared  by  a  forty  years'  discipline  in  the  wilderness  to 
be  the  citizens  of  such  a  nationality,  and  the  subjects  of  such 
a  government. 

5.  The  people  were  united  together  by  the  most  admir- 
able system  of  municipal,  civic,  and  social  regulations, 
which  ever  governed  any  people.  The  very  laws  of 
dependency  and  reciprocity  established  between  the  Jewish 
families,  classes  and  tribes,  were  such  as  naturally  to  bind 
them  together.  Their  distinguished  ancestry ;  their  common 
and  eventful  history ;  their  frequent  national  and  religious 
convocations ;  and  their  common  religion,  which  was  the 
essence  of  their  whole  economy,  and*  the  chief  business  of  all 
the  people  ;  were  all  elements  of  unity  which  bound  their 


THE  LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  211 

nationality  as  with  clasps  of  inseverable  adamant.  And 
though  the  Jewish  nationality  is  now  destroyed,  yet  where- 
ever  the  fragments  have  floated,  these  fragments  still  have 
an  affinity  for  each  other. 

6.  To  meet  the  sixth  condition  for  a  permanent  and  fixed 
nationality,  God  isolated  them  from  the  balance  of  mankind. 
This  was  done,  not  only  to  preserve  their  nationality,  but  to 
preserve  them  from  a  demoralizing  contact  with  a  corrupt 
world,  as  their  work  was  such  as  to  demand  national  holiness. 
It  was  necessary  that  this  isolation  should  be  brought  about 
without  taking  them  out  of  the  world,  because  they  were  to 
be  the  receivers  and  dispensers  of  a  religion  God  intended 
for  the  world's  benefit.  God  accomplished  it  therefore; 
First,  by  making  them  peculiar  and  exclusive  :  peculiar  in 
their  government,  peculiar  in  their  religion,  peculiar  in  their 
language,  peculiar  in  their  manners,  peculiar  in  their  eating, 
peculiar  in  their  drinking,  peculiar  in  their  garments,  peculiar 
in  their  domestic  and  social  relations.  They  were  even  for- 
bidden to  intermarry  with  the  surrounding  nations.  Every- 
thing appertaining  to  this  strange,  grand  old  people,  was 
peculiar.  Second,  by  locating  them  away  off  the  paths  of  the 
world's  travel  and  commerce,  in  a  mountainous  country.  A 
country  producing  so  abundantly  they  needed  not  to  buy  of 
the  surrounding  nations,  yet  its  productions  were  of  that 
character  as  then  not  to  be  demanded  in  the  markets  of  the 
world.  They  were  commercially  isolated  from  intercommu- 
nications with  other  nations  to  a  great  degree.  God  built 
the  Jewish  nationality  in  which  to  preserve  the  elementary 
principles  of  religion,  till  according  to  the  laws  of  the  human 
mind  and  the  nature  of  things,  the  system  could  be  finished 
by  the  coming  and  work  of  the  promised  seed.  Till  that 
event  it  could  not  be  destroyed. 

Also,  threading  the  history  of  the  Jews  was  the  line  of 
Christ's  genealogy  beginning  at  Seth,  whom  Eve  claimed  as 


212  SERMONS. 

the  father  of  the  promised  seed,  and  traced  link  by  link  by 
the  inspired  penmen,  all  other  genealogies  being  dropped, 
down  to  Enoch,  Noah,  Abraham,  Judah,  David,  to  the  bloom- 
ing virgin  of  Bethlehem.  From  Adam  it  took  the  line  of 
Seth's  descendants  ;  from  Noah  the  line  of  Shem  ;  from  Abra- 
ham the  line  of  Isaac ;  from  Isaac  the  line  of  Jacob  ;  from 
Jacob  it  went  glimmering  like  a  thread  of  gold  down  the 
successive  generations  of  Judah.  Unbroken  it  stretched 
over  the  flood,  over  Babel,  over  Goshen,  over  the  wrecks  of 
antiquity,  from  Eve  to  Mary,  from  the  guarded  beauties  of 
Eden  to  the  wretched  manger  in  the  city  of  David. 

Pallas,  in  Grecian  Mythology,  was  the  Goddess  of  wisdom. 
She  was  the  same  with  Minerva  of  the  Romans.  The  Tro- 
jans possessed  a  statue  of  her  called  Palladium — Pallas,  Pal- 
ladium. They  said  it  had  fallen  from  the  skies.  Upon  the 
preservation  of  this  statue  they  believed  the  safety  of  Troy 
depended.  Now,  the  elementary  principles  of  religion  pre- 
served in  the  constitution  and  institutions  of  the  Jewish  na- 
tion, and  in  a  remote  and  collateral  sense  the  genealogical 
line  of  Christ,  constituted  the  Palladium  of  Judah' s  nation- 
ality. "  The  sceptre  shall  not  depart  from  Judah,  nor  a  law- 
giver from  between  his  feet,  until  Shiloh  come."  The  ten 
tribes  were  carried  into  captivity  and  scattered  forever.  Ben- 
jamin was  swallowed  up  in  Judah  ;  but  Judah  lived  on  in 
distinct  and  regal  sovereignty.  True  his  cities  were  often 
burned,  his  country  desolated,  his  children  carried  into  cap- 
tivity ;  true  the  hordes  of  North,  South,  and  East,  often 
overran  his  territory  and  it  seemed  he  was  swept  from  the 
face  of  the  earth,  but  out  of  his  own  ashes,  like  the  phoenix, 
he  ever  arose  and  hastened  on  to  the  coming  Shiloh.  Till 
Shiloh  came  he  could  not  die — his  nationality  could  not  be 
destroyed. 

But  Shiloh  came,  and  coming  of  the  house  of  David, 
of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  ended  forever  the  necessity  of  a  con- 


THE   LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  213 

secutive  Jewish  genealogy ;  and  by  His  work  completed  the 
system  of  religion.  He  took  the  elementary  principles  out 
of  the  Jewish  Repository,  and  commencing  with  them  built 
a  splendid  fabric,  finely  finished  by  His  incarnation  and 
work  ;  whose  stupendous,  architectural,  and  symmetrical 
grandeur  ;  whose  foundations,  walls,  columns,  arches,  turrets, 
and  altars,  elicited  the  wondering  admiration  of  universal 
being,  and  called  angels  in  its  courts  to  study  the  wisdom 
and  love  of  God  in  the  redemption  of  sinners.  Shiloh  came, 
and  finished  the  system  of  religion,  then  rent  the  veil  and  let 
the  Gentiles  into  God,  and  the  Shekinah  shining  out  through 
the  fracture  from  the  Jewish  Holy  of  Holies  burst  in  floods 
of  glory  upon  the  night  of  the  world.  O  God  !  lengthen 
and  brighten  its  beams  till  it  shall  verge  into  a  millennial  sky 
and  earth's  Jubilee  shall  begin.  Shiloh  came  and  found 
Christianity  in  its  nonage,  as  the  mere  ward  of  Jewish  na- 
tionality, and  reared  it  at  once  into  a  legal  majority,  affran- 
chised it,  and  dismissed  the  guardian.  No  longer  a  babe  it 
needed  no  nurse,  and  the  nurse  died.  The  work  of  the 
Jewish  nation  was  finished  with  the  finishing  of  sacrificial  re- 
demption. Christ's  death  finished  it  and  His  dying  words 
were  its  epitaph — and  a  nationality  older  than  Moses  passed 
away,  the  sceptre  departed  from  Judah  and  a  lawgiver  from 
between  his  feet,  and  the  children  of  Palestine  are  wanderers 
among  all  nations. 

The  finishing  of  sacrificial  redemption  implied: 
II.  The  finishing  of  the  Dispensation  of  Types  and  Sym- 
bols preceding  Jesus. — The  former  dispensation  was  one  of 
types  and  symbols.  It  was  this  necessarily :  1.  The  mind 
of  man  was  not  capable  in  earlier  ages  of  the  world  to  re- 
ceive the  elementary  principles  of  religion  as  abstract  prin- 
ciples, hence  they  were  lodged  in  types  and  symbols  where 
they  could  see  them  and  hear  them.  2.  The  spirit  of  man 
was  not  capable  in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  world  to  receive 


214  SERMONS. 

religion  in  its  abstract  spirituality — he  could  only  be  effectu- 
ally approached  through  his  senses ;  therefore  religion  was 
lodged  in  types  and  symbols  where  he  could  take  sensual 
cognizance  of  it.  And  to-day  when  you  find  a  contracted 
spirituality  in  man,  you  find  a  tendency  to  run  after  the  visi- 
ble and  tangible,  the  typical  and  symbolical,  in  religion, 
rather  than  the  spiritual.  The  chief  power  of  some  religious 
denominations  which  are  behind  the  times  at  least  eighteen 
hundred  and  sixty-seven  years,  consist  in  the  capabilities  of 
their  systematic  formula,  and  gorgeous  paraphernalia,  to 
please  the  senses — in  fact  to  encourage  and  develop  that 
part  in  man  which  it  is  the  office  of  true  religion  to  subdue. 
3.  Religion  could  only  be  revealed  in  parts  ;  without  the 
whole  these  parts  could  not  be  understood :  therefore,  man 
could  not  remember  them,  or  remembering  he  would  not 
take  enough  interest  in  them  to  preserve  them.  Conse- 
quently God  lodged  them  in  types  and  symbols  whose  philo- 
sophic and  adapted  action  upon  the  senses  was  such  as  to 
insure  their  preservation.  4.  Men's  language  conforms  to 
their  mental  and  spiritual  condition.  In  the  earlier  ages  of 
the  world  the  mental  and  spiritual  in  man  were  so  subordi- 
nated to  the  sensual,  that  the  language  was  too  sensuous  to 
receive  and  perpetuate  a  spiritual  religion,  therefore  it  was 
lodged  in  types  and  symbols  for  its  conservation.  5.  In  the 
earliest  ages  of  the  world,  there  was  no  written  language, 
and  if  religion  could  have  .been  communicated  intelligently 
and  appreciatively  to  the  mind,  tradition  was  too  unreliable 
and  unsafe  to  entrust  with  so  valuable  a  treasure — and  we 
have  another  and  final  reason  for  its  lodgment  in  types  and 
symbols. 

The  former  dispensation  was  one  of  types  and  symbols. 
Adam,  Abel,  Melchizedek,  Isaac,  Moses,  David,  Solomon, 
and  the  Joshua  of  the  prophets  were  all  types  of  Christ  in  some 
especial  application.     Noah's  ark,  Jacob's  ladder,  the  taber- 


THE   LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  21 5 

nacle,  the  temple,  the  veils  of  both,  ark  of  the  covenant,  the 
mercy  seat,  the  brazen  altar,  golden  altar,  golden  candle- 
stick, brazen  laver,  manna,  brazen  serpent,  rock  of  Horeb, 
cities  of  refuge,  the  tree  of  life,  in  some  sense  were  all  types 
of  Christ,  and  are  so  treated  in  the  Scriptures.  The  High  Priest 
of  the  Jews  in  the  performance  of  every  function  appertaining 
to  his  sacerdotal  office,  was  a  type  of  Christ  our  High  Priest — 
especially  and  preeminently  so,  when  on  the  great  annual 
day  of  Atonement  he  offered  two  expiatory  sin  offerings,  one 
for  himself  and  one  for  the  people,  and  entered  twice  into 
the  Holy  of  Holies,  once  for  himself  and  once  for  the  people, 
and  sprinkled  the  blood  of  the  sacrifice  seven  times  upon 
the  mercy  seat,  and  seven  times  before  it. 

The  Holy  of  Holies  was  a  chamber  in  the  extremity  of 
the  temple.  In  this  chamber  was  the  ark  of  the  covenant, 
a  small,  oblong  chest  made  of  acacia  wood  plated  within 
and  without  with  gold,  its  upper  edge  ornamented  with  a 
golden  border  or  rim.  This  ark  was  a  splendid  type  of  the 
covenant  of  redemption,  hence  called  the  "  Ark  of  the 
Covenant."  In  the  ark  were  the  tables  containing  the  law 
to  be  propitiated  ;  Aaron's  rod  which  budded  in  evidence 
of  the  Divine  authority  of  the  Priestly  Office,  the  sole  means 
of  its  propitiation  ;  and  a  golden  vase  containing  manna, 
typical  of  the  revivification  and  nourishment  of  the  soul  de- 
rived from  the  vicarious  offering  of  the  pure  humanity  of 
the  Son  of  God — "  I  am  the  living  bread  which  came  down 
from  Heaven."  The  ark  was  covered  with  a  golden  lid 
called  the  mercy  seat.  Immediately  above  this  golden  lid 
God  dwelt  in  an  appropriate  symbol.  Here  we  have  the 
propitiated  God,  appropriately  enthroned  upon  a  mercy 
seat,  and  that  mercy  seat  covering  and  resting  upon  that 
which  contained  an  unrepealed,  still-binding,  yet  satisfied  law. 

On  the  two  extremities  of  the  mercy  seat  were  two  cheru- 
bims  of  beaten  gold,  with  their  wings  extended  and  lifted  up 


2l6  SERMONS. 

overshadowing  the  ark  and  the  symbol  of  God's  presence, 
with  their  faces  towards  each  other  and  inclined  towards  the 
mercy  seat ;  typical  that  the  entire  scheme  was  in  accord- 
ance with  the  highest  principles  of  cherubic  intelligence,  and 
that  it  met  with  the  intelligent  approval  of  all  unfallen  spirit- 
ual beings  ;  typical  of  angelic  study  into  the  Divine  plan,  in- 
timating that  it  was  a  philosophic  development  of  principles 
eternally  existing  in  the  system  of  God,  and  that  it  was  a 
profound  embodied  manifestation  of  the  Divine  wisdom  and 
goodness  which  was  worthy  of  their  closest  attention  and 
deepest  thought,  yet  never  could  be  fully  understood  ;  and 
typical  of  angelic  agency  in  the  establishment  and  perfection 
of  the  scheme,  of  that  which  Stephen  said  was  given  "  by  the 
disposition  of  angels,"  or  as  Paul  expresses  it,  of  that  which 
"  was  ordained  by  angels  in  the  hands  of  a  mediator." 

Before  the  ark  stood  the-  High  Priest,  typical  of  Christ ; 
clothed  in  his  robes,  typical  of  Christ's  righteousness;  upon 
his  bosom  his  breastplate  set  with  twelve  precious  stones 
severally  engraved  with  the  names  of  the  twelve  tribes  of 
Israel,  typical  of  the  abiding  interest  of  all  the  Israel  of  God 
in  the  mediation  of  Christ,  and  that  their  names  are  im- 
perishably  engraven  upon  His  memory  and  heart ;  in  his 
breastplate  the  Urim  and  Thummim — Urira  signifying  lights, 
Thummim  signifying  perfections — in  virtue  of  which  the  High 
Priest  gave  oracular  answers  to  the  people,  typical  that  God 
through  Christ  is  the  source  of  all  experimentally  religious 
knowledge,  and  the  infallible  truth  of  salvation's-  plan  as  ac- 
complished by  the  work  of  Christ  and  taught  by  His  sacred 
lips ;  upon  his  brow  a  golden  mitre  engraved  with  the 
phrase,  "  Holiness  to  the  Lord,"  typical  that  perfect  holiness 
was  essential  in  a  mediator  between  God  and  man,  and  that 
the  coming  Saviour  would  possess  the  required  qualification  ; 
in  his  hand  a  censer  of  burning  incense,  typical  of  the  inter- 
cessions of  Christ,  and  God's  great  pleasure  in  a  reconcili- 


THE   LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  217 

ation  with  man  through  Christ ;  sprinkling  blood  the  instru- 
ment of  propitiation  upon  the  mercy  seat,  the  throne  of  the 
symbol  of  the  Being  to  be  propitiated,  and  the  covering  of 
the  law  the  thing  to  be  propitiated — typical  of  the  expiatory 
nature  and  efficiency  of  the  blood  of  Christ ;  and  sprinkling 
the  propitiatory  blood  upon  the  mercy  seat  and  before  it 
seven  times — seven  meaning  perfection — typical  of  the  per- 
fect atonement  to  be  made  by  Christ.  What  a  magnificent, 
proportionate,  and  appropriate  aggregation  of  symbols,  sym- 
bolizing the  existence,  nature,  and  agreement  of  all  the  facts, 
things,  principles,  and  agencies,  involved  in  the  atonement. 

Every  antediluvian,  patriarchal,  and  Jewish  sacrifice  which 
was  peculiar,  was  a  type  of  Christ.  As  the  crooked  smoke 
of  Abel's  altar  climbed  toward  God,  he  looked  away  by  faith 
to  the  promised  seed.  Paul  defined  his  faith  together  with 
all  those  worshippers  who  lived  before  Christ,  when  in  writ- 
ing of  faith  in  the  very  connection  in  which  I  am  using  it, 
he  writes,  "  Faith  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the 
evidence  of  things  not  seen."  God  instituted  sacrificial  wor- 
ship as  typical,  and  Abel  looked  upon  it  from  that  fact  as  an 
evidence  of  a  coming  Saviour  whom  he  i;  hoped  for,"  and  was 
not  then  "  seen."  Such  was  the  significance  of  the  sacrifices 
of  Noah,  of  Abraham  and  the  more  diversified  and  systematic 
sacrifices  of  the  Jews.  Like  finger-posts  along  the  dusty 
highway  of  time,  they  pointed  the  faith  of  the  worshipper  to 
a  sacrificial  Saviour.  As  types  they  foreshadowed  the  great 
Antetype.  They  were  the  adumbrations  of  a  substance 
yet  to  come,  the  significant  shadows  of  redemptive  entity  still 
ahead.  In  fact  the  mode  of  the  consecration  offering,  the 
breast  of  the  sacrifice  being  waved  by  the  Priest  to  the  right 
and  left  before  the  Lord — horizontally,  the  shoulder  of  the 
sacrifice  being  heaved  up  and  down  by  the  priest  before  the 
Lord— perpendicularly,  marked  in  the  air  a  cross  prefiguring 
the  manner  of  Jesus'  death.  The  faith  of  heaven's  true  wor- 
10 


2l8  SERMONS. 

shippers  in  the  old  dispensation,  propped  upon  a  thousand 
altars,  glimmering  in  the  blood  of  a  thousand  sacrifices, 
stretched  down  to  Christ  the  prepollent  centre  to  which 
the  faith  of  mankind  before  and  since  gravitated  and  gravi- 
tates. 

But  this  vast  dispensation  of  types  and  symbols  was  only 
elemental,  preparative,  and  preliminary.  It  was  a  dispensa- 
tion of  services  which  operated  upon  the  outside  man.  Its 
power  was  exerted  from  without  working  in  upon  the  mind. 
Hence  its  rites  were  imposing*  its  symbols  splendid,  its  ser- 
vices sublime.  And  though  the  exigencies  involved  in  man's 
nature,  relations,  and  condition,  made  it  an  antecedent  in- 
dispensable to  something  better,  yet  it  had  not  power  com- 
mensurate with  its  pomp  and  the  drive  of  its  immense 
machinery.  It  worked  around  the  cause  in  the  realms  of 
effect,  therefore  it  was  not  ultimate,  but  rudimental  and  in- 
troductory— opening  the  way  for  something  better.  It  was 
only  the  propaedeutics  of  the  science  of  religion.  The  stern 
old  "letter"  lacked  a  soul. 

But  the  finishing  of  redemption  was  its  finishing.  The 
work  of  the  finishing  of  the  one,  was  the  record  of  the  finish- 
ing of  the  other.  The  completion  of  sacrificial  redemption 
was  its  death  doom,  and  the  old  "  schoolmaster  "  laid  down 
ferrule  and  died — and  the  bellowing  earthquake  which  rent 
the  rocks  of  Calvary  and  tore  the  veil  of  the  temple  asunder 
was  his  funeral  knell.  "  It  is  finished,"  said  Christ,  and  the 
vast  ecclesiastical  system  of  the  patriarchs  and  Moses,  colos- 
sal in  structure  and  hoary  in  antiquity,  came  down  with  a 
crash  which  crushed  its  own  temple.  Its  bloody  altars  drifted 
far  out  into  oblivion,  and  its  priestly  vestments  now  hang 
in  tattered  shreds  upon  the  ruins  of  history.  Jesus  the  great 
Antetype  took  all  its  rites,  types,  and  symbols  with  him  to 
his  cross,  and  nailed  them  there.  They  died  with  him  and 
were  buried  with  him  ;  and  when  he  arose  a  living  conqueror 


THE  LAST  WORDS   OF  JESUS.  2IQ 

with  a  living  religion  by  his  side,  he  left  them  to  moulder  in 
the  damp  vault  of  his  tomb  forever. 

When  Jesus  cried  "  It  is  finished,"  Christianity,  the  Minerva 
of  heaven,  the  child  of  God,  threw  aside  the  swaddling  clothes 
of  its  typical  infancy,  and  came  forth  a  stalwart  giant  whose 
determined  and  advancing  tread  shook  hell,  whose  brandish- 
ing mace  laid  low  at  his  feet  in  crushed  and  ruined  dust  the 
towers  of  iniquity,  and  whose  shout  of  triumph  awaked  the 
dead.  It  came  forth  a  dispensation  of  power  working  inside 
of  the  man.  It  exerted  its  power  from  within,  working  out- 
wards. It  does  not  fritter  away  its  strength  in  the  regions  of 
effect,  but  strikes  right  at  the  cause.  And  it  has  power 
equal  to  its  beauty,  and  equal  to  drive  the  machinery  of  re- 
demption to  a  hell-astounding,  world-redeeming,  and  heaven- 
applauding  ultimate.  It  meets  all  man's  wants.  It  is  adapted 
to  all  man's  necessities.  It  will  never  be  changed,  and 
never  superseded.  Its  principles  are  eternal,  its  elements 
homogeneous,  its  constitution  imperishable.  Even  in  its 
present  dispensational  form  it  will  live  while  man's  probation 
endures — till  the  last  nail  is  driven  in  the  last  coffin  of  earth's 
last  dead  child.  The  first  dispensation  lacked  power,  the 
last  is  peculiarly  a  dispensation  of  power  ;  the  first  was  power 
exerted  ab  extra  working  inwards,  the  last  is  power  exerted 
ab  intra  working  outwards  ;  the  one  was  typical,  the  other  is 
antitypical ;  the  one  was  elementary,  the  other  is  ultimate  ; 
the  one  was  the  propedeutics,  the  other  is  the  science  ;  the 
one  was  Christianity  begun,  the  other  is  Christianity  finished  ; 
the  one  was  visible,  the  other  is  invisible  ;  the  mode  of  the 
one  was  sensual,  the  mode  of  the  other  is  spiritual. 

The  finishing  of  sacrificial  redemption  implied  the  finish- 
ing : 

III.  Of  the  promissory  and  prophetic  dispensation  of 
the  Old  Testament,  so  far  as  such  dispensation  had  reference 
to  the  nature  and  incarnation  of  Christ,  to  the  history  of  his 


220  SERMONS. 

life  and  death  as  the  son  of  David,  and  as  the  sacrifice  for 
mail's  sin.  Long  before  the  coming  of  Christ  the  Scriptures 
had  foretold  his  origin  and  relationships,  the  circumstances 
and  events  of  his  birth,  the  circumstances  and  events  of  his 
life,  the  circumstances  of  his  ministry,  the  circumstances  and 
events  of  his  death,  and  a  graphic  and  minute  description  of 
his  natural  and  moral  character.  They  even  went  further 
than  the  textual  limits  of  this  discourse  will  permit  us  to  elab- 
orate and  amplify — extending  to  the  circumstances  of  his 
burial,  resurrection,  ascension  and  future  intercession. 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  filled  the  description  to  the  letter,  neither 
rising  above  it  nor  falling  below  it,  and  in  that  he  filled  it 
proved  himself  to  be  the  archetype  of  the  prophetic  por- 
traiture. 

Hear  some  of  the  lofty  predictions  of  Scripture  :  The 
night  of  the  world  had  begun.  Adam  and  Eve  were  trem- 
bling before  their  Judge.  The  curse  of  God  was  resting 
upon  them.  As  yet  they  had  heard  no  words  of  hope,  and 
seen  no  lines  of  light  threading  the  texture  of  the  frowning 
cloud  of  wrathful  darkness  overshadowing  the  brow  of  theii 
God.  God  turned  to  the  serpent,  and  they  listened  with 
awful  interest  :  "  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and  the 
woman,  and  between  thy  seed  and  her  seed  ;  it  shall  bruise 
thy  head,  and  thou  shalt  bruise  his  heel."  This  was  a  curse 
to  the  serpent,  but  a  promise  to  them — the  promise  of  a 
Redeemer.  The  serpent  had  conquered  them,  but  in  his 
turn  he  was  to  have  a  conqueror.  The  head  is  the  senso- 
rium,  the  centre  of  intelligent  life  ;  the  heel  is  but  an  infe- 
rior part  of  the  body.  Though  Satan  has  bruised  the  heel 
of  Jesus,  yet  the  foot  of  our  Immanuel's  power  is  now  upon 
his  head. 

David  sitting  upon  Mount  Sion,  sang  of  a  coming  Mes- 
siah, the  trill  of  his  accompaniments  dancing  with  joy  upon 
the  quivering  strings  of  his  golden  harp.     He  went   down 


THE   LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  221 

into  Death's  black  river  singing,  he  sang  beneath  the  wave, 
he  ascended  the  opposite  bank  still  singing  ;  and  though 
twenty-eight  centuries  have  trodden  upon  his  grave,  and 
ground  kingdoms  to  dust  in  their  stately  march  to  the  Judg- 
ment, still  he  sings — away,  away  on  the  other  shore — in  his 
palatial  home  built  by  Him  who  built  the  universe,  its  beauti- 
ful domes  frosted  with  gems  and  glittering  forever  under  the 
beaming  glories  of  heaven's  setless  sun.  Yet  all  the  while 
his  theme  has  been  the  same — Jesus  it  was,  Jesus  it  is,  and 
Jesus  it  will  ever  be.  Absorbing,  conquering  theme,  it  will 
ring  forever ;  and  as  countless  thousands  are  ever  crossing 
and  ascending,  it  is  ever  sounding  louder,  rising,  widening, 
rolling,  thundering,  echoing,  till  its  melodies  fill  the  uni- 
verse. 

Isaiah,  the  prince  of  prophets,  whose  book  is  the  linguistic 
and  poetic  masterpiece  of  the  Bible,  is  more  graphic  and 
happy  in  his  prophetic  delineations  of  the  character  and  mis- 
sion of  Christ,  than  any  of  the  sacred  writers.  Hear  him  : 
"  Unto  us  a  child  is  born,  unto  us  a  son  is  given  ;  and  the 
government  shall  be  upon  his  shoulders :  and  his  name  shall 
be  called  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  The  Mighty  God,  The 
Everlasting  Father,  The  Prince  of  Peace."  "  A  child  is 
born" — showing  its  relations  to  humanity,  "  A  son  is  given  " 
— showing  its  relations  to  Divinity.  The  reason  of  the 
appropriateness  of  the  other  designations  is  at  once  per- 
ceived. Here  titles  significant  of  nature  are  piled  upon 
titles,  till  the  whole  mounts  to  a  climax  of  indestructible 
grandeur  and  inextinguishable  glory,  whose  apex  is  the  axle 
upon  which  the  wheels  of  redemption  whirl  as  level  as  the 
scanning  eye  of  God,  and  as  steady  as  His  throne,  and  upon 
it  the  faith  of  the  world  may  climb,  and  cling,  and  grow,  till 
it  drops  its  fruit  in  heaven.  We  might  follow  this  inimitable 
old  prophet  as  he  advances— now  giving  the  melting  sweet- 
ness of  Christ's  character,  and  the  benevolence  of  his  life  ; 


222  SERMONS. 

now  describing  his  sufferings  ;  now  dilating  upon  his  qualifi- 
cations as  the  Messiah  ;  now  delineating  with  a  master's 
hand,  and  pencilling  with  an  artist's  touch,  the  glory  of  his 
kingdom  in  its  millennial  ripeness — growing  grander,  and  as- 
cending higher  at  every  step  ;  but  we  must  bid  adieu,  remem- 
bering that  by  and  by  we  will  see  him  and  talk  with  him  on 
the  other  shore. 

The  other  prophets  tell  their  story  in  their  turn.  Daniel 
tells  when  Christ  will  come;  Micah  where  He  will  come 
from ;  Malachi  of  His  forerunner.  The  Old  Testament 
began  with  Christ,  and  it  ends  with  Him.  "  The  testimony 
of  Jesus  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy,"  says  John.  Jesus  is  the 
Alpha  and  Omega  of  the  Bible,  its  animus,  its  mind,  its  spirit. 
He  is  the  moral  of  its  fables,  the  truth  of  its  allegories,  the 
archetype  of  its  imagery,  the  antitype  of  its  types.  He  is 
the  vital  substance  which  gives  meaning  to  its  genealogies, 
meaning  to  its  histories,  meaning  to  its  chronologies ;  the 
secret  of  its  unity,  the  secret  of  its  strength,  the  secret  of  its 
beauty.  Take  Jesus  out  of  the  Bible  and  its  essence  is 
extracted,  and  nothing  but  a  cold,  dry,  inconsistent,  sense- 
less, lifeless  thing  remains.  Take  Jesus  out  of  the  Bible  and 
it  would  be  like  extracting  calcium  out  of  lime,  carbon  out 
of  diamond,  truth  out  of  history,  invention  out  of  fiction, 
matter  out  of  physics,  mind  out  of  metaphysics,  numbers 
out  of  mathematics,  cause  and  effect  out  of  philosophy — - 
that  which  constitutes  the  essential  in  the  nature  of  the 
thing  is  extracted  out  of  the  thing. 

The  Bible  is  a  splendid  edifice  of  which  God  was  the 
architect,  and  angels,  prophets,  kings,  and  evangelists  were 
the  builders.  Jesus  is  its  foundation,  and  the  keystone  of  its 
arches.  Take  Jesus  out  of  it  and  the  whole  falls  into  ruins. 
But  with  Jesus  for  its  foundation,  Jesus  for  the  voussoir  of  its 
arches,  it  is  an  imperishable  fortress  whose  walls  can  never 
be   scaled,    whose   towers   can   never   be   levelled,   though 


THE  LAST  WORDS   OF  JESUS.  223 

attacked  by  all  hell's  enginery,  and  besieged  by  all  hell's 
legions.  Look !  the  name  of  Jesus  is  on  every  page. 
Through  this  narrative  and  genealogy  it  runs  like  a  line  of 
glimmering  silver  ;  it  threads  this  majestic  epic  like  a  golden 
strand  of  orient  light  ;  it  lies  glittering  in  the  beautiful  idyls 
of  David  like  a  central  gem  around  which  the  melodious 
numbers  of  this  prince  of  Israel's  singers  cluster  like  Jewels. 
With  Jesus  on  every  page  it  is  transplendent  with  glory — it 
is  a  lamp  to  our  feet.  But  with*  the  finishing  of  sacrificial  re- 
demption, all  the  promises  and  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment which  had  reference  to  the  nature  and  incarnation  of 
Christ,  to  the  history  of  his  life  and  death  as  the  son  of 
David,  and  as  the  sacrifice  for  sin  were  fulfilled ;  and  they 
lost  their  superior  importance  by  losing  their  prospective  sig- 
nificance, and  they  sank  to  the  level  of  historical  records, 
remarkable  only  because  being  prophetic  they  were  records 
in  advance  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  fact. 

IV.  But  the  great  fact  which  was  accomplished  by  the 
death  of  Jesus,  and  of  whose  accomplishment  the  text  is  the 
official  record,  and  which  involved  in  its  completion  the  fin- 
ishing of  the  providential  work  of  the  Jewish  nation,  the 
finishing  of  the  dispensation  of  types  and  symbols  preceding 
Jesus,  and  the  finishing  of  the  promissory  and  prophetic  dis- 
pensation of  the  Old  Testament  with  the  especial  limitations 
already  mentioned,  was  The  Work  of  Sacrificial  Rede7tip- 
tion. 

Man  sinned,  the  law  could  not  forgive,  it  could  not  be 
abrogated,  it  could  not  remit  its  claims,  and  God  had  no  pre- 
rogative to  pardon  above  law.  God,  Himself,  was  insulted, 
His  nature  and  attributes  were  outraged  ;  and  man  being  an 
integral  and  essential  part  in  the  unity  of  the  system  of  God, 
his  sin  disturbed  his  own  relations  to  the  system  and  sadly 
impaired  the  unity  of  the  whole.  Sin  is  the  violation  of  law 
the  basis  of  order,  therefore  it  is  essentially  disorganizing  and 


224  SERMONS. 

destructive  of  all  unity ;  and  being  also  a  foreign  element  in 
the  system  of  God,  like  the  action  of  any  foreign  substance 
when  introduced  into  an  organized  unity  it  subverted  and 
destroyed  the  unity.  Immediate  death  to  the  sinner  was  the 
inexorable  and  logical  result  of  Sin.  Death,  the  sum  of  all 
penalties,  the  aggregation  of  all  evils,  the  quintessence  of  all 
horrors,  was  the  penalty,  and  man  must  die.  Man  was  pow- 
erless to  save  himself — self-redemption  was  philosophically 
impossible.  His  redemption  however  might  be  accomplished 
upon  certain  well-defined  and  legal  principles. 

If  some  scheme  could  be  introduced  which  could  extend 
pardon  to  the  sinner,  which  could  give  him  a  sanctified  and 
pure  nature — a  nature  so  radically  new  and  good  that  it 
would  be  equivalent  to  being  born  again,  which  could  also 
enable  him  when  changed  for  future  obedience — and  which 
could  at  the  same  time  expel  sin  out  of  the  system  of  God, 
heal  the  breach  made  in  the  system  by  the  introduction  of 
sin,  readjust  and  perfect  the  original  unity  of  the  system, 
maintain  the  majesty  and  authority  of  law,  meet  the  ends  of 
justice,  glorify  God  and  all  His  attributes,  man  might  be  re- 
deemed and  saved.  No  element  in  such  a  scheme  must  in- 
volve the  slightest  departure  from  the  unbending,  inexorable, 
and  eternal  principles  of  God's  nature,  God's  system,  and 
God's  government.  Such  a  scheme  must  be  no  unnatural 
fungus  growing  on  the  system  of  God,  no  miserable  hybrid 
born  of  the  unlawful  union  of  a  sickly  mercy  and  a  truckling 
Justice,  no  heteroclitic  thing  created  for  the  occasional  ab- 
normity, no  patchwork,  no  afterthought ;  but  a  normal  and 
synchronal  part  of  the  system  of  God  itself,  finding  its  phi- 
losophy in  the  philosophy  of  the  system,  and  existing  and 
proceeding  in  its  development  according  to  laws  as  eternal 
and  unchangeable  as  God. 

And  such  it  was.  Long  before  man  was  made  it  was. 
"We  speak  the  wisdom   of  God  in   a  mystery,  which   God 


THE  LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  225 

ordained  before  the  world  unto  our  glory."  Every  system 
has  a  recuperative  power.  The  recuperative  power  in  every 
system  is  but  the  developments  of  the  natural  forces  of  the 
system  exerted  to  expel  foreign  substances  and  to  heal  and 
preserve  itself.  Now  Redemption  is  but  the  systematic  de- 
velopment, in  perfection,  of  the  recuperative  power  of  the 
universal  system  of  God — the  vis  vitae  of  the  system.  This 
recuperative  power,  however,  in  the  system  of  God,  is  exerted 
necessarily  only  to  preserve  the  system,  not  to  preserve  any 
offending  member  of  the  system.  The  object  of  its  exertion 
is  achieved  if  the  system  is  preserved,  whether  it  involve  the 
separation  of  the  offending  member  in  question,  or  the  heal- 
ing and  retention  of  the  member  in  the  unity. 

Whether  the  sinner  be  redeemed  or  damned  it  makes  no 
difference  with  relation  to  the  system — it  has  recuperative 
power  sufficient  to  preserve  itself;  but  to  preserve  itself  one 
or  the  other  must  result — the  sinner  must  be  saved  or  lost, 
he  cannot  exist  in  the  system  an  unredeemed  and  unpunished 
sinner,  and  the  system  survive.  The  redemption  of  man, 
therefore,  though  it  is  the  philosophic  action  of  the  recuper- 
ative power  of  the  system  of  God,  is  a  matter  of  grace  upon 
the  part  of  God,  the  Head  and  sensorium  of  the  system — for 
the  same  result  with  reference  to  the  system  could  be  ac- 
complished by  the  final,  irremediable,  and  eternal  death  of  the 
sinner.  The  scheme  of  Redemption  is  perceived  to  be  as 
old  as  the  system  of  God  itself,  but  its  institution  in  the  con- 
crete is  a  matter  of  grace. 

Man's  will  but  consented  to  sin  when  he  was  hurled  by 
the  dynamic  energies  of  the  life-giving  and  life-restorative 
power  of  the  system  of  God,  down  the  awful  slope  of  death 
to  that  under  and  outer  darkness  beyond  the  boundaries  of 
normal  being  ;  but  the  mercy  of  God  interfered,  and  ordered 
the  same  power  which  was  destroying  man  to  expel  and  de- 
stroy the  sin  but  save  the  sinner ;  and  immediately  redemp- 

10* 


226  SERMONS. 

tion's  scheme,  the  masterpiece  of  heaven's  mind,  the  result 
of  heaven's  laws,  leaped  in  philosophic  birth  from  the  womb 
of  a  chilling  abstraction,  upon  the  stage  of  a  living  concrete, 
and  commenced  a  legal  philosophic  development,  sweeping 
to  a  perfection  which  culminated  when  Jesus  died.  Won- 
drous, glorious  Scheme  !  grand  in  its  beginning,  grander  in 
its  development,  grandest  in  its  completion.  But  attention  ! 
profound  attention  !  to  the  Royal  Immanuel  the  immaculate 
man,  the  incarnated  God,  which  constituted  and  constitutes 
its  subject — Ecce  Homo!  Ecce  Deus  ! 

A  few  shepherds  were  gathered  together,  watching  their 
flocks  and  guarding  them  from  wild  beasts.  The  place  was 
the  country  in  the  hilly  environs  of  Bethlehem,  the  home  of 
the  poor,  but  regal  line,  of  the  royal  singer  of  Israel.  The 
time  was  night,  and  the  cold  star  beams  glanced  but  feebly 
upon  hills  and  valleys  trod  by  the  feet  of  Abraham,  and  hung 
but  a  pale  and  sickly  livery  upon  the  dark  walls  of  the  city 
of  David.  While  they  watched,  suddenly  a  flood  of  glory 
shone  around  them,  and  looking  up  they  beheld  an  angel, 
who  said  to  them  :  "  Fear  not :  for  behold  I  bring  good 
tidings  of  great  joy,  which  shall  be  to  all  people.  For  unto 
you  is  born  this  day  in  the  city  of  David  a  Saviour,  which  is 
Christ  the  Lord.  And  this  shall  be  a  sign  unto  you  ;  ye 
shall  find  the  babe  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes  lying  in  a 
manger."  This  remarkable  announcement  was  scarcely 
finished,  when  suddenly  a  vast  multitude  of  angels  appeared 
in  the  sky  praising  God.  The  whole  dome  of  heaven,  vocal, 
seemed  to  drop  with  the  improvisations  of  the  angelic  song- 
sters. The  night  air  quivered  with  the  reiterations  of  their 
chorus  :  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace, 
good  will  toward  men." 

After  the  flight  into  Egypt,  the  murder  of  the  babes  of 
Bethlehem,  and  the  return  to  Nazareth,  the  subject  of  this 
announcement  disappeared  until  twelve  years  after,  he  was 


THE   LAST  WORDS   OF  JESUS.  227 

found  by  Mary  sitting  in  the  temple  in  the  midst  of  the  doc- 
tors and  rabbis  of  the  Jewish  nation,  hearing  them  and  ask- 
ing them  questions.  After  this,  he  disappeared  from  gen- 
eral notice  for  twenty-two  years,  till  he  was  officially  intro- 
duced to  mankind  upon  the  banks  of  the  Jordan  by  a  voice 
directly  from  heaven,  saying:  "This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased."  He  then  commenced  his  public 
ministry.  He  overcame  Satan  in  the  wilderness,  taught  in 
the  synagogues,  taught  in  the  temph,  taught  along  the  way- 
side, and  preached  and  prayed  in  the  mountain.  He  com- 
forted the  poor,  administered  to  the  needy,  healed  the  sick, 
cast  out  devils,  stilled  the  tempest,  raised  the  dead.  He 
was  goodness  embodied,  virtue  exemplified,  holiness  incar- 
nated. He  was  the  highest  model  of  humanity,  the  highest 
type  of  the  race,  a  man  without  an  equal. 

The  third  passover  of  his  public  ministry  arrived.  He  and 
his  disciples  convened  in  a  large  upper  chamber  to  eat  the 
Passover,  fifteen  hundred  and  twenty-eight  years  after  its  in- 
stitution. Said  Christ,  "  I  have  desired  to  eat  this  Passover 
with  you  before  I  suffer."  And  he  proceeded  to  erect  upon 
the  ruins  of-  this  old  Jewish  festival  another  institution.  He 
took  bread,  blessed  it,  broke  it,  and  gave  it  to  his  disciples, 
saying,  "  Take,  eat,  this  is  my  body."  After  supper,  he  took 
the  cup,  and  said,  "  Drink  ye  all  of  it ;  for  this  is  my  blood 
of  the  new  covenant."  He  then  washed  his  disciples'  feet, 
and  mournfully  predicted  his  betrayal  by  one  of  them,  and 
his  denial  by  another.  It  was  a  solemn  and  sad  parting. 
There  was  probably  a  few  moments  of  sorrowful  silence, 
then  they  sang  a  hymn,  after  which  they  went  to  Mount 
Olivet.  He  then  selected  three  of  his  disciples  and  went  to 
a  garden  at  the  foot  of  the  mount,  and  requested  them  to 
watch  with  him — and  said,  "  My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful, 
even  unto  death." 

Why  so  sorrowful  ?     Because  the  aggregated  sins  of  earth's 


228  SERMONS. 

unnumbered  millions,  dead,  living,  and  unborn,  were  piled 
upon  his  head  and  heart,  and  he  was  about  to  suffer  in  man's 
stead  for  all  of  them,  till  Justice,  insulted  and  outraged  by 

.  the  intensely  aggravated  human  crimes  of  centuries,  would 
itself — itself,  the  offended  without  a  third  adjudicating  party 
— declare  that  it  was  satisfied.  He  was  about  to  be  exposed, 
unaided-  and  unfriended,  to  the  kindled  vengeance  of  an  ex- 
asperated law,  which  had  waited  four  thousand  years  for  the 
satisfaction  of  its  original  claims,  augmented  by  man's  offences 
a  millionfold  per  moment  as  the  outstanding  debt  grew  older. 
He  was  about  to  suffer  the  most  excruciating,  frightful,  and 
horrid  of  deaths  in  the  history  of  human  suffering  and  homi- 
cides. He  was  about  to  be  made  the  victim  of  the  blackest 
treachery  in  the  annals  of  perfidy,  and  to  be  forsaken  and 
disowned  by  some  of  his  followers  as  a  miserable  impostor. 
He  was  about  to  pass  through  a  test  at  which  his  human  na- 
ture drew  back  appalled,  and  upon  the  success  of  which  the 
eternal  interest  of  all  mankind  depended,  and  during  which 
if  he  faltered  but  the  least  the  salvation  and  hopes  of  man- 
kind would  be  everlastingly  blasted.  And  he  knew  that  his 
success  was  not  fated,  but  that  it  depended  upon  his  own 
power  as  a  moral  agent,  and  that  while  a  failure  was  not 
probable,  it  was  possible.  And  in  all  the  bitterness  of  his 
heart  he  said  :  "  My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto 
death." 

He  went  a  little  further,  and  staggering  beneath  the  weight 
of  his  sorrow  fell  upon  the  ground.  Near  was  the  city  of 
Jerusalem.  The  dissonant  hum  of  multitudinous  thousands 
eome  to  the  Passover,  and  the  resounding  clamor  and  shouts 

jpf  priestly  mobs  rang  discordantly  upon  the  air.  In  cruel 
pitilessness  the  music  of  proud  Moriah's  temple  poured  its 
trumpet  melodies  over  the  surrounding  hills,  and  died  away 
in  echoes  amid  the  tombs  of  the  prophets.  The  rising  moon 
looked  coldly  on,  and  dropped  its   chilly  beams  upon  the 


THE   LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  229 

dewdrops  which  wept  in  his  flowing  locks.  Peter,  James, 
and  John,  fell  asleep.  Ah  !  he  must  tread  the  wine-press 
alone. 

But  the  agony  of  his  devotion  was  disturbed  by  the  tramp 
of  martial  feet  ;  a  disciple  has  betrayed  him  ;  the  others  for- 
sake him  and  flee.  He  was  arrested  and  led  away  to  Annas, 
then  to  Caiaphas,  then  to  Pilate,  to  Herod,  then  back  to 
Pilate — a  hellish  rabble  following  and  crowding  upon  his 
weary  steps,  and  yelling  till  the  very  dust  of  the  kings  sent 
back  from  their  sepulchral  vaults  the  echoes,  "  Crucify  him, 
Crucify  him."  Said  Pilate,  "  I,  having  examined  him  before 
you,  have  found  no  fault  in  this  man,  touching  those  things 
whereof  ye  accuse  him."  "I  find  no  evil  in  him."  Here 
was  the  decision  of  the  court,  and  it  passed  into  record. 
u  Crucify  him,  Crucify  him,"  howled  the  mob.  "  What  hath  he 
done?"  said  Pilate — "Crucify  him,  Crucify  him,"  responded 
the  Priests — "  Crucify  him,  Crucify  him,"  still  shouted  the 
beastly  rabble.  Pilate  then  washed  his  hands  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  people,  and  said,  "  I  am  innocent  of  the  blood 
of  this  just  person  :  see  ye  to  it." — "  Take  ye  him  and  cru- 
cify him  :  for  I  find  no  fault  in  him."  Shame  on  you,  truck- 
ling, cowardly,  tyrannical  Judge  !  You  said  the  lofty  man 
before  your  bar,  for  whose  protection  if  innocent  all  the 
power  of  Rome  was  pledged,  was  not  guilty  of  the  charges 
preferred  against  him,  yet  you  ordered  the  infliction  of  the 
penalty.  Universal  manhood  blushes  with  shame  that  you 
were  a  man.  You  may  wash  your  hands  forever,  but  you 
are  a  murderer,  and  the  crime  of  deicide  will  follow  you  to 
tiie  Judgment  seat  of  Him  you  once,  you  being  the  witness, 
so  unjustly  condemned. 

They  then  crowned  him  with  thorns,  they  spit  upon  him, 
they  mocked  him,  they  scourged  him,  and  led  him  away  to 
Calvary.  The  cross  was  lying  upon  the  ground,  they 
stretched  him  uprn  it,  the  weighty  hammer  drove   the  nail 


230  SERMONS. 

through  his  hands  into  the  wood  ;  his  feet  were  crossed  and 
one  spike  served  to  fasten  them  both,  driving  through  into 
the  wood.  The  cross  was  lifted,  and  with  its  lifting  the 
world  was  raised  and  dropped  into  its  place  and  fastened 
there.  Millions  of  worlds  may  float  to-day  in  space.  Many 
of  them  are  larger  and  probably  grander  than  this  poor  earth. 
They  may  be  strewn  with  diamonds,  and  robed  with  flowers 
which  never  fade,  and  whose  beauty  and  fragrance  exceed 
our  most  gorgeous  dreams.  But  if  they  have  no  Calvary  to 
diadem  their  beauty,  of  all  the  worlds  which  God  has  made 
and  which  crowd  the  universe,  our  world  is  king — the  king 
of  spheres — and  the  highway  which  leads  from  it  to  heaven 
is  more  frequently  trodden  by  angels.  We  have  our  Cal- 
vary— Grand  Old  Calvary  ! — Heaven's  Sacrificial  altar — the 
moral  axis  of  the  world  upon  which  the  wheels  of  Redemp- 
tion move.     Near  it, 

"  I  would  for  ever  stay, 

Weep  and  gaze  my  soul  away  ; 
Thou  art  heaven  on  earth  to  me, 
Lovely,  Mournful  Calvary." 

But  it  was  now  high  twelve  when  the  cross  was  properly 
adjusted,  and  Jesus  was  left  there  to  hang  and  die.  The 
sun  had  proudly  run  his  wonted  way  and  was  blazing  in  the 
zenith — in  a  moment  more  he  would  strike  the  declivity  of 
the  west,  and  rolling  in  glorious  pomp  to  the  horizon  would 
close  the  day.  Yet  a  great  darkness  fell  upon  the  earth. 
The  sins  of  all  mankind  from  Eden  to  the  Judgment,  gath- 
ering from  every  continent  paved  with  hyperborean  ice,  or 
sown  with  tropical  sands,  driven  by  the  breath  of  God,  col- 
lected on  the  reeking  mount,  and  piled  around  the  cross, 
and  up  to  heaven,  and  widening  threw  their  sable  pall  all 
over  the  world.  Angels  shaved  the  darkness  with  weeping 
wing,  demons  ran  and  howled,  and  Sinai  rocked  and  bel- 


THE   LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  23 1 

lowed  while  continents  shook,  and  its  penal  thunders  long 
pent  up,  sped  through  the  shivering  night,  and  tore  through 
the  quivering  flesh  of  the  suffering  Son  of  God,  and  burst 
with  horrid  death  in  life's  throbbing  seat — while  God's  eternal 
attributes  emptied  their  vials  of  burning  wrath  upon  the  , 
gory  head  and  mangled  brow  of  the  Sacrifice.  Yet,  as- 
tounding madness  !  the  priests,  the  scribes,  the  elders,  the 
mob,  reviled  and  mocked  him,  and  hurled  their  infernal 
satire  at  the  patient  sufferer.  But  hear  Jesus  :  "  Father,  \ 
forgive  them  :  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

Unlike  these,  another  voice,  feebled  by  suffering,  is  heard, 
but  it  murmurs  a  prayer  :  "  Lord,  remember  me  when  thou 
comest  into  thy  kingdom."  The  heart  that  can  pray  for  its 
enemies,  though  breaking,  can  hear  a  penitent's  prayer: 
"  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise,"  and  before  the 
sun  was  down,  and  the  Sabbath  came  on,  Jesus  entered  the 
Paradise  of  God  with  the  soul  of  the  dying  thief  as  evidence 
of  the  worth  of  his  blood,  and  the  fulness  of  Redemption. 
He  saw  his  poor  and  probably  widowed  mother  weeping  at 
the  foot  of  the  cross,  and  John  standing  by.  Said  Jesus  to 
her  :  "Woman,  behold  thy  son  !" — to  John  :  "Behold  thy 
mother." — John,  take  care  of  my  mother;  mother,  let  John 
take  my  place  as  your  son  when  I  am  gone. 

Three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  arrived.  An  awful  shade 
of  insufferable  anguish  passed  over  the  face  of  the  suffering 
Saviour — "  My  God,  my  God !  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me?" — angels  have  forsaken  me — not  one  remaining — the 
last  one  flew  awa)r  at  the  advance  of  the  guard  in  the  garden  ; 
and  the  last  human  friend  that  might  be  able  to  assist  me 
is  gone,  but  all  this  I  could  endure  so  long  as  ,.hou  wast 
with  me—"  Why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?  "  I  am  friendless 
and  alone  among  my  enemies — the  Jews,  the  power  of  Rome 
supported  by  its  conquering  legions,  and  all  hell  are  against 
me-— But  oh,  "My  God,  my  God,"  my  only  stay,  "Why  hast 


232  SERMONS. 

thou  forsaken  me  ? "  Jesus  had  undertaken  the  work  of 
redemption,  and  had  taken  the  sinner's  place,  and  he  must 
feel  God's  displeasure.  But  this  was  enough — the  cup  of 
his  suffering  was  rapidly  filling,  and  now  it  mounted  full  to 
the  brim,  and  he  is  dying.  Dying  now  !  O  God,  He  is 
dying !  Look  at  the  pale  brow,  the  livid  face,  the  sinking 
eye,  the  quivering  lip.  The  Lord  of  Glory  is  dying  !  Hear 
it,  Jerusalem  !  Hear  it,  Patriarchs  !  Hear  it,  tombs  of  the 
Prophets  !  Hear  it,  Angels,  and  tell  it  as  you  fly,  till  all  tht 
stars  shall  put  on  mourning,  and  all  the  spheres  go  wailing  in 
orphanage  along  their  eternal  circuits.  The  Lord  of  Glory 
is  dying  ! 

"It  is  finished,"  said  Jesus,  li  and  he  bowed  his  head, 
and  gave  up  the  Ghost."  Earth  quaked,  her  continents 
reeled,  her  mountains  bowed,  Lebanon  shook  his  frosty  top 
and  all  his  cedars  groaned,  the  granite  split,  the  limestone 
arches  of  Machpelah's  cave  rent  and  shivered,  threatened  to 
crush  to  finer  dust  the  bones  of  Abraham  ;  inexorable  law 
flung  its  liquidated  bond  into  Sinai's  fires  and  hushed  its 
wrathful  thunders ;  the  bloody  sword  of  Justice  satisfied,  de- 
scending cleft  in  twain  the  Jewish  veil,  its  blood  adhering  to 
the  sundering  edges  and  was  sheathed  behind  the  Mercy  Seat, 
and  God's  perfections  opened  wide  their  arms  to  receive  the 
redeemed  and  repentant  rebel.  "  It  is  finished."  The 
work  of  sacrificial  redemption  long  begun,  at  last  was  done. 
Every  legal  and  philosophic  condition  involved  in  the  nature 
of  God,  His  attributes,  system,  Government,  and  law,  in  the 
nature  of  man,  man's  relations  and  condition,  and  in  the  na- 
ture of  things,  necessary  to  a  perfect  redemption,  was  fully 
met  in  the  nature,  character,  work,  sufferings,  and  death  of 
Jesus.  Nothing  was  lacking,  and  sacrificial  redemption,  the 
greatest  scheme  of  the  universe,  for  whose  development  all 
natures,  principles,  beings,  causes,  effects,  and  events,  with 
concreted  action  worked  for  four  thousand  years,  was  com* 


THE   LAST   WORDS   OF  JESUS.  233 

pleted,  and  stood  forth  in  commanding  and  wondrous  gran 
deur  a  structure  which  rose  to  heaven. 

Its  massive  foundations  were  lain  before  Cain  was  born. 
Angels,  men,  and  demons,  do  what  they  would,  do  what  they 
could,  were  impressed  as  workmen  under  Jesus,  the  master- 
builder,  and  slowly  through  the  lapse  of  ages,  the  building 
rose  stone  by  stone.  The  deluge  rolled  above  the  mountain 
tops  and  scattered  the  dust  of  antediluvian  generations  all 
over  the  world,  the  tower  of  Babel  sank  in  crumbling  ruins, 
cities  were  built  and  burned,  nations  were  born  and  nations 
died,  but  still  the  work  went  on  ;  increasing  in  strength,  in- 
creasing in  beauty,  increasing  in  glory,  till  it  ascended  above 
the  clouds,  towered  beyond  the  stars,  and  lifted  its  battle- 
mented  walls,  glittering  turrets  and  burnished  domes  in  sight  of 
the  city  of  God.  The  work  was  nearly  done — Jesus  was  dying 
— and  as  He  died  He  dropped  the  keystone  in  the  last  and 
highest  arch,  and  placed  the  corner-stone,  the  rejected  corner- 
stone, stained  with  blood,  hewn  out  of  the  quarries  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  life,  upon  the  summit  of  the  last  and  highest  cor- 
ner, and  said,  "It  is  finished." 

Aerial  vibrations  caught  the  news,  and  murmured  it  along 
the  glens,  whispered  it  among  the  rocks,  sang  it  through  the 
trees,  sounded  it  in  the  caves,  trumpeted  it  in  the  hurricane, 
thundered  it  in  the  storm — till  every  rippling  wave  and  foam- 
ing surge,  every  slanting  hill  and  mountain  peak,  every  island 
small  and  continent  vast,  shouted  it  to  other  spheres,  as  this 
old  earth  now  redeemed  went  rolling  on  with  speed  of  the 
lightning's  flash  along  its  circling  track.  The  tidings  flew 
from  world  to  world,  from  star  to  star,  and  sun  to  sun,  from 
earth  to  heaven.  Angels  shouted  it  into  the  ears  of  the  dead 
—shouted  it  in  space— shouted  it  at  the  gates  of  hell- 
shouted  it  on  every  sphere— shouted  it  from  the  boundaries 
of  being— shouted  on  every  floral  hill  of  heaven,  every  spire 
of  the  city  }f  God  rocking  and  chiming,  every  wall  and  tower 


234  SERMONS. 

echoing  —  and  all  the  sainted  dead  shouting  in  chorus, 
crowded  to  the  throne  of  God  and  bowed  in  awful  reverence 
and  profoundest  adoration,  and  said,  "  Amen."  "  It  is 
finished  " — Beautiful  scheme  !  Splendid  plan  !  Symmet- 
ric whole  !  Grand  as  God !  His  character's  transcript, 
His  wisdom's  embodiment,  His  love's  incarnation,  His  per- 
fection's duplicate,  His  ideal  of  the  good.  Well  begun,  suc- 
cessfully built,  sublimely  finished — and  there  it  stood,  the 
study  of  angels,  the  hope  of  men,  the  wonder  of  the  universe, 
the  crowning  work  of  creation's  God,  the  masterpiece  of 
heaven — Finished  ! 


SERMON   XVIII. 

RETRIBUTION. 
"  Be  sure  your  sin  will  find  you  out." — Num.  xxxii.  23. 

THIS  is  no  philosophical  aphorism,  no  empty  threaten- 
ing, but  the  language  of  Divine  inspiration,  clothed 
with  the  eternal  truth  of  Him  who  cannot  lie,  and  backed 
by  the  arm  of  inexorable  Justice  which  will  sooner  or  later 
verify  it.  Apply  it  where  you  will,  to  the  church,  to  its 
members,  to  the  penitent  weeping  at  the  altar,  to  the  minis- 
try, to  the  sinner  revelling  in  his  midnight  debaucheries  or  to 
a  nation  that  has  forgotten  God— wherever  there  is  sin  col- 
lectively or  individually,  it  will  rind  the  sinner  out. 

I.  By  the  exposure  of  the  sinner  so  that  he  will  be  recog- 
nized in  his  character  as  a  sinner,  whenever  brought  in  con- 
tact with  understanding  beings.  The  truth  of  this  proposi- 
tion is  evident  from  the  fact  that  sin  contains  the  principles 
of  its  own  development  and  manifestation.  Whatever  exists 
in  man's  moral  or  intellectual  nature  naturally  develops  and 
manifests  itself  in  the  life.  It  will  work  out  in  the  life  a  re- 
sult corresponding  with  it  in  character  with  the  certainty  of 
cause  and  effect.  Sin  exists  in  both  the  intellectual  and 
moral  nature  ;  its  principle  unbelief,  in  the  intellect ;  its 
essence  enmity  to  God,  in  the  moral  nature.  And  whatever 
be  the  philosophic  relation  of  the  principle  and  essence  of 
sin  to  each  other,  they  are  both  simultaneous  and  active 
causes  with  relation  to  the  life.  If  unbelief,  the  antipode  of 
Evangelical  faith,  be  in  the  mind,  and  enmity  to  God  be  in 


236  SERMONS. 

the  heart,  this  composes  man's  nature  as  a  whole,  and  a 
man's  life  will  correspond  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  with 
his  nature. 

True,  men  have  not  always  accomplished  all  their  natures 
prompted  them  to  do  ;  but  this  does  not  affect  the  truth  of 
the  doctrine  that  the  character  of  men's  natures  manifests 
itself  in  their  lives,  but  may  be  attributed  to  the  restraining 
power  of  God's  grace,  to  the  hand  of  His  power  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  His  government,  to  the  authority  of  law,  both 
Divine  and  human,  made  terrible  by  a  penalty,  the  influence 
of  public  sentiment,  and  the  difficulties  involved  in  the  execu- 
tion of  many  things.  But  this  restraining  power  has  never 
been  so  great,  but  what  men,  if  they  act  at  all,  though  they 
may  not  act  in  a  degree  equal  to  their  intellectual  and  moral 
obliquities,  yet  always  act  in  harmony  with  their  natures,  and 
not  contrary  to  them.     This,  they  do  from  necessity. 

Universal  experience  attests  the  truth  of  this  position,  and 
all  men  act  upon  the  assumption  that  it  is  so,  for  character 
is  always  judged  by  the  conduct.  Christ  recognized  the 
truth  of  this  doctrine  when  He  taught  that  a  tree  was  known 
by  its  fruit.  Sin  in  the  nature  leads  to  bad  conduct ;  false- 
hood, slander,  theft,  blasphemy,  fornication,  adultery,  idola- 
try, murder,  drunkenness,  and  a  host  of  other  kindred  evils, 
bantlings  of  darkness  nursed  upon  the  knees  of  sin  of  various 
degrees  of  criminality,  which  like  a  cloud  of  devouring  locusts 
upon  the  wing  of  the  hurricane,  have  descended  into  the  gar- 
den of  God,  and  devoured  all  its  beauty.  If  the  lives  of 
men  can  be  seen  and  recognized  as  good  or  evil,  and  sin  in 
the  mind  always  issues  in  the  life,  then  sin,  however  men 
may  try  to  conceal  it,  will  expose  the  sinner,  and  exposing 
him  will  find  him  out. 

Sin  will  find  the  sinner  out  by  the  inevitable  tendency  of 
its  nature  to  progress  to  ampler,  more  palpable,  and  crimi- 
nal developments,     I   will  present  you  several    illustrative 


RETRIBUTION.  237 

amplifications  of  this  thesis.  1.  Sin  is  the  most  insidious 
and  subtle  thing  in  the  world.  It  insinuates  itself  so  gradu- 
ally and  slowly  into  the  habits  and  principles  of  men,  thai 
they  know  not  its  progress  and  strength  till  the  nature  is  so 
corrupted  as  to  be  capable  of  the  darkest  crimes.  2.  The 
elements  and  acts  of  sin,  however  small,  diminish  in  propor- 
tion to  their  criminality  from  every  thing  that  is  good  in  the 
nature,  and  in  the  same  ratio  give  and  increase  the  predis- 
position of  the  nature  to  wrong,  and  capacitate  it  for  more 
flagrant  acts — and  on  acceleratively.  3.  The  elements  and 
acts  of  sin,  however  small,  deaden  and  harden  the  moral 
sensibilities,  therefore  lessen  the  power  of  moral  resistance 
to  wrong,  and  sins  increase  in  number  and  magnitude,  the 
power  of  moral  resistance  growing  weaker  in  tne  same  ratio, 
till  the  man  is  prepared  to  commit  crimes  of  the  greatest 
turpitude,  and  with  the  greatest  facility.  4.  The  nature  of 
sin  is  such,  and  the  nature  of  the  fallen  man  is  such,  that 
in  the  same  proportion  men  sin,  their  love  for  sin  increases, 
therefore  the  inevitable  tendency  of  the  nature  of  sin  to 
progress  to  ampler,  more  palpable,  and  criminal  develop- 
ments. 5.  The  elements  and  acts  of  sin  are  like  the  sim- 
ple pustule  which  becomes  an  ulcer,  increasing  in  acceler- 
ated virulence  and  purulency,  till  it  eats  up  and  destroys 
the  whole  system,  and  the  man  is  a  putrid,  loathsome  car- 
cass of  death.  The  disease  in  the  form  of  a  pustule  may 
be  hidden,  but  if  its  tendency  is  to  assume  the  form  of  an 
ulcer  concealment  becomes  impossible.  The  sinner  may 
successfully  succeed  in  hiding  sin  in  its  incipient  stages,  but 
if  its  tendency  is  to  a  chronic  ulceration  terminating  in  a 
moral  gangrene,  its  disclosure  is  a  certainty. 

That  sin  will  progress  to  ampler  and  criminal  develop- 
ments. Take  Hazael,  King  of  Syria,  for  an  illustration.  Be- 
fore Hazael  became  king,  Elisha  said  to  him,  "  I  know  what 
evil  thou  wilt  do  unto  the  children  of  Israel  :  their  strong- 


238  SERMONS. 

holds  wilt  thou  set  on  fire,  and  their  young  men  wilt  thou 
slay  with  the  sword,  and  wilt  dash  their  children,  and  rip  up 
their  women  with  child."  Hazael  said,  "Is  thy  servant  a 
dog,  that  he  should  do  this  great  thing  ?  "  Yet  he  was  led 
by  the  insidious,  subtle,  and  progressive  nature  of  sin  to 
commit  the  barbarities  which  the  prophet  predicted,  and 
which  he  viewed  at  the  time  of  the  prediction  with  the  great- 
est horror.  Peter  was  in  earnest  when  he  said  to  Christ, 
"  Lord,  I  am  ready  to  go  with  thee,  both  into  prison,  and  to 
death."  But  notice  the  progressive  nature  of  sin  :  He  is 
seen  following  Christ  afar  off,  he  is  found  in  bad  company, 
he  is  heard  blaspheming  and  denying  his  Lord.  Now,  if  this 
is  the  nature  of  sin,  it  will  expose  the  sinner,  and  exposing 
the  sinner  will  find  him  out. 

Sin  will  find  the  sinner  out  by  exposing  him  to  the  public 
cognizance  by  its  transforming  power.  Have  you  not  seen 
an  aspiring  and  promising  intellect  wrecked  in  mid-life  by 
sin  and  dissipation  :  the  judgment  impaired,  the  memory 
weakened,  the  imagination  corrupted  and  its  fire  burning 
only  with  a  fitful  and  unhealthy  glare — the  intellect  trans- 
formed into  an  imbecile  monstrosity  visible  in  the  entire  life 
of  the  person  ?  Have  you  not  seen  modesty  transformed  by 
some  infernal  alchemy  into  effrontery,  love  into  hatred,  phi- 
lanthropy into  misanthropy,  benevolence  into  churlishness, 
meekness  into  anger,  confidence  into  distrust,  faith  into  in- 
fidelity, hope  into  despair,  a  delicate  and  correct  apprecia- 
tion of  the  true,  the  beautiful  and  the  Good,  into  an  utter 
dumbness  and  obtuseness  of  every  ennobling  sensibility;  the 
entire  moral  and  social  nature  changed  into  a  transformation 
at  once  abnormal,  bestial  and  fiendish — a  transformation  seen 
in  every  relation  in  life,  and  which  sin  could  only  produce, 
and  too  patent  for  concealment.  Have  you  not  seen  the 
polished  decorum  of  the  gentleman  changed  into  the  boor- 
ish vulgarism  of  the  barbarian,  the  courtesy  and  suavity  of  a 


RETRIBUTION.  239 

lady  changed  into  the  discourtesy  and  captiousness  of  a 
crabbed  shrew;  both  changes  wrought  by  sin,  and  too  percep- 
tible for  denial.  Sin  will  expose  the  sinner  by  transforming 
the  mind,  soul,  and  character. 

But  sin  will  expose  the  sinner  by  transforming  the  body 
also.  An  Italian  artist  seeing  a  little  boy  of  exquisite  beauty 
and  loveliness,  painted  the  child's  portrait,  and  hung  it  up  in 
his  studio  as  a  type  of  heaven,  his  ideal  of  the  spiritual  and 
good.  He  resolved  that  if  ever  he  found  a  living  contrast  to 
that  sweet  boy  he  would  paint  it  also,  and  hang  it  by  the 
side  of  the  other  as  a  type  of  hell,  his  idea  of  the  sensual  and 
wicked.  Many  years  afterwards,  in  a  distant  country,  in  a 
prison,  he  saw  the  most  frightful  and  horrid  demon  in  human 
flesh  he  ever  beheld.  His  eyes  were  ablaze  with  lust,  and 
his  cheeks  bore  the  deep  imprints  of  crime.  He  remem- 
bered his  resolution,  and  painted  the  hideous  face,  and  upon 
his  return  hung  it  beside  the  portraiture  of  the  little  boy. 
The  painter's  dream  was  now  realized,  the  antipodes  of  the 
moral  universe  hung  upon  the  walls  of  his  studio,  side  by 
side.  But  imagine  the  painter's  surprise  when  he  found, 
upon  inquiry,  that  the  pictures  were  of  the  same  person — 
that  loathsome  wretch  was  once  that  little  boy.  His  picture 
in  innocent  childhood,  his  picture  in  criminal  manhood,  are 
now  hanging  side  by  side  in  a  Tuscan  picture  gallery. 

Man's  internal  feelings  imprint  themselves  upon  his  face, 
speak  in  his  eyes,  and  sound  their  names  in  his  voice.  Joy, 
ecstasy,  hope,  despair,  love,  pity,  remorse,  abstraction, 
amazement,  fear,  hatred,  rage,  revenge,  terror,  etc.,  have 
their  appropriate  facial  phenomena,  and  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  in  marvellous  uniformity  write  their  respective  names 
in  the  human  countenance,  readable  by  all  men.  The  face, 
says  an  author,  is  the  playground  of  thought  and  feeling. 
Let  the  same  system  of  feeling  be  persisted  in,  and  in  time 
they  will  leave  their  hard-trodden  track  upon  the  lines  of  the 


240  SERMONS. 

face,  that  all  observers  may  read.  How  wonderful  that 
qualities  of  character  can  express  themselves  in  fibrous  and 
muscular  contractions  and  dilatations,  in  the  combination 
and  curvature  of  cuticular  lines  furrowing  the  facial  superfice. 
But  such  is  the  truth,  and  more — a  man  may  change  his 
character,  yet  his  face  like  a  palimpsest  will  often  bear, 
though  it  may  be  in  imperfect  tracery,  the  express  of  his 
original  character  lying  behind  the  more  modern  expressions 
of  a  character  reformed.  Character  will  exhibit  itself  in  the 
face.  The  external  man  will  be  moulded  and  fashioned  into 
a  likeness  corresponding  with  the  internal  man.  Says  an  old 
poet : 

"  For  of  the  soul,  the  body  form  doth  take  ; 
For  soul  is  form,  and  doth  the  body  make. 

Sin  cannot  lie  concealed  in  the  soul — it  will  out. 

The  first  proposition  advanced  for  a  brief  elaboration,  dis- 
cussion, and  illustration,  was  this  :  sin  will  find  the  sinner 
out,  by  the  exposure  of  the  sinner  so  that  he  will  be  recog- 
nized in  his  character  as  a  sinner,  whenever  brought  in  con- 
tact with  understanding  beings.  The  truth  of  this  proposi- 
tion I  have  established  by  three  short  arguments  :  i.  Sin 
contains  the  principles  of  its  own  development  and  manifes- 
tation. 2.  Sin  will  find  the  sinner  out  by  the  inevitable  ten- 
dency of  its  nature  to  progress  to  ampler,  more  palpable,  and 
criminal  developments.  3.  By  exposing  the  sinner  to  the 
public  cognizance  by  its  transforming  power. 

II.  Sin  will  find  the  sinner  out  by  the  exposure  of  the  es- 
pecial principle  and  act  of  sin  of  which  the  sifiner  is  guilty. 
Often  in  this  life.  If  avarice  be  in  the  heart,  according  to 
principles  already  discussed  and  illustrated,  the  avaricious 
life  will  disclose  it,  hence  we  say,  "an  avaricious  man."  If 
lasciviousness  be  in  the  heart,  a  debauched  and  sinful  life 
will  disclose  it.     It  is  so  with  pride,  and  other  sins,  all  to  a 


RETRIBUTION.  24 1 

greater  or  less  degree.  Some  men  are  not  known  as  sinners 
only,  but  as  guilty  of  certain  sins.  Not  only  are  sinful  prin- 
ciples often  disclosed  in  this  life,  but  sinful  acts.  If  the  tins 
be  flagrant  offences,  it  seems  that  a  disclosure  sooner  or  later 
is  almost  inevitable.  Hundreds  of  instances  might  be  quoted 
where  a  murderer  wrought  his  sins  in  the -dark,  yet  was  ex- 
posed by  a  Providential  concurrence  of  circumstances  quite 
miraculous.  Sometimes  the  murderer's  awful  secret  burned 
his  soul  with  such  an  incessant,  unmitigated,  and  unquench- 
able torment,  that  a  confession  was  a  relief — till  he  was  driven 
to  confession  or  suicide,  and  suicide  was  confession. 

If  not  in  this  life,  every  individual  and  especial  sin  will  be 
made  known  in  that  great  day.  Hear  the  two  passages  of 
Scripture  of  general  application  :  ''Judge  nothing  before  the 
time,  until  the  Lord  come,  who  both  will  bring  to  light  the 
hidden  things  of  darkness,  and  will  make  manifest  the  coun- 
sels of  the  heart."  "  God  shall  bring  every  work  into  Judg- 
ment, with  every  secret  thing,  whether  it  be  good  or  whether 
it  be  evil."  Terrible  verses  !  "  Will  bring  to  light  the  hidden 
things  of  darkness" — wicked  principles  and  acts  now  con- 
cealed, wicked  principles  and  acts  now  veiled  in  the  darkness 
of  obscurity  and  secrecy ;  wicked  acts  wrought  in  the  night. 
"  Will  make  manifest  the  counsels  of  the  hearts  " — a  publica- 
tion of  the  designs,  plans,  and  purposes  of  the  mind.  Many 
an  individual  action  believed  to  be  good  by  the  outside  world 
when  performed,  will  then  appear  very  corrupt  when  the  de- 
signs of  the  action  will  be  manifest.  Many  of  us  will  appear 
awfully  strange,  and  awfully  different,  when  our  motives  will 
be  as  manifest  as  our  acts.  Some  men  will  then  shine  the 
brighter ;  others  will  lose  a  large  portion  of  their  lustre,  I 
fear.  "  Every  secret  thing,  whether  it  be  good  or  whether 
it  be  evil"— all  secrets,  good  and  evil— secrets  of  thought, 
secrets  of  imagination,  secrets  of  intention,  secrets  of  mo- 
tive, secrets  of  influence,  secrets  of  character,  secrets  of 
11 


242  SERMONS. 

sensuality,  secrets  of  conduct,  will  be  brought  into  the 
Judgment  and  there  exposed.  Who  is  ready  for  such  a 
disclosure  ? 

Hear  two- verses  more  specific  in  their  application-:  (i  But 
I  say  unto  you,  that  every  idle  word  that  men  shall  speak, 
they  shall  give  account  thereof  in  the  day  of  judgment." 
That  is  idle  words,  or  words  spoken  idly,  which  have  a  posi- 
tive evil  in  them.  Many  of  the  useless  words  often  used  in 
social  life  are  not  of  themselves  sinful.  The  Greek  implies 
hurtful  idle  words.  Such  words  though  whispered,  will  in 
the  Judgment  be  made  manifest.  "  God  shall  bring  every 
work  into  Judgment."  "  Be  sure  your  sin,"  your  special  sin, 
"  will  find  you  out."  Nothing  that  you  have  ever  done  will 
be  lost.  Such  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  :  but  I 
intend  to  urge  its  truth  to-day  from  several  scientific  con- 
siderations. For  several  years,  some  theories  have  been 
floating  upon  the  waves  of  science,  deemed  rather  too  un- 
certain and  speculative  in  detail,  to  be  dignified  as  scientific 
conclusions,  and  assigned  a  stationary  rank  and  place  upon 
the  pages  of  a  well-accredited  philosophy,  yet  involving  a 
principle  too  well-established  to  be  dissociated  from  the 
philosophy  of  the  day,  and  cast  into  the  vast  heap  of  scien- 
tific monstrosities  and  speculative  heresies,  which  contain 
the  remains  of  the  ruined  philosophic  systems  of  the  mediaeval 
ages.  Whether  they  be  true  in  extenso  or  not,  they  involve 
a  great  principle  of  scientific  truth  too  well-established  to 
need  a  defence  from  me.  You  may  have  read  them  many  a 
time,  and  threw  them  aside  without  a  moment's  thought,  but 
I  wish  to  reproduce  them  for  you  to  consider  more  carefully. 
Their  reproduction  and  presentation  now  can  possibly  do  no 
harm,  and  may  do  good. 

i.  Your  words  are  immortalized  by  atmospheric,  and  may 
be,  by  ethereal  vibrations  too.  Every  word  you  have  uttered, 
whether  it  be  good  or  evil,  loud   or   soft,  cheerful  or  sad, 


RETRIBUTION.  243 

musical  or  discordant,  may  have  produced  vibrations  in  thd 
air,  and  modifications  of  atmosphere,  proceeding  according 
to  regular  laws  and  working  with  mathematical  precision 
through  all  the  necessary  changes  of  an  atmosphere  burdened 
and  agitated  with  a  multiplicity  of  sounds,  preserving  the 
word,  its  measure  and  intonation,  to  be  revealed  in  the  great 
day  upon  the  wing  of  the  wind,  and  the  folding  pages  of  the 
tempest.  It  is  scientifically  evident  that  there  is  a  rare  ele- 
ment or  medium  existing  coextensively  with  the  universe. 
Between  the  atmosphere  of  this  world  and  other  orbs  there  is 
something,  not  a  mere  vacuum,  for  comets  meet  with  re- 
sistance. If  a  vacuum,  we  could  not  receive  light  from  the 
sun.  We  do  not  have  light  in  virtue  of  the  emission  or  pro- 
jection of  particles  of  matter  from  the  sun,  which  was  the  old 
Newtonian  or  corpuscular  theory,  but  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  a  medium  thrown  into  undulations  by  the  sun- 
by  the  vibrations  of  a  medium,  like  sound  is  conveyed 
through  the  atmosphere.  This  medium  is  supposed  to  be 
even  more  rare,  subtile,  and  elastic  than  air,  and  is  called 
ether.  This  theory  has  of  late  been  the  one  generally  re- 
ceived by  scientific  men. 

As  distinguished  from  this  undulatory  theory,  there  is 
another  which  is  commanding  the  attention  of  men  of  science, 
namely  :  that  c '  light  is  but  a  polar  tension  of  ether,  evoked 
by  a  central  body  in  antagonism  with  the  planets."  Upon  the 
assumption  of  the  truth  of  either  of  the  last-mentioned 
theories  that  there  is  a  medium  or  rare  element  existing  co- 
extensively with  the  universe,  and  that  this  medium  is  capa- 
ble of  conveying  sound  by  vibrations  :  if  this  be  true,  your 
words  then  may  travel  by  vibrations  through  this  medium 
throughout  creation,  and  be  now  sounding  along  the  halls 
and  echoing  amid  the  arches  and  columns  of  eternity,  and 
sound  there  forever,  God  and  angels  intelligently  hearing. 
There  is  a  room  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  in  London,  so  con- 


244  SERMONS. 

structed  that  if  you  whisper  upon  one  side  of  it,  the  whisper 
is  heard  distinctly  at  the  other  side.  It  is  called  the 
"  Whispering  Gallery."  Now,  you  are  standing  in  a  great 
whispering  gallery  where  every  word  and  whisper  are  not 
only  heard  to  heaven,  but  probably  on  the  other  side  of  the 
universe,  and  the  peculiar  aerial  and  ethereal  vibration  both 
may  preserve  them  forever.  Oaths,  curses,  prayers,  are  out 
beyond  recall,  and  the  winds  this  day  may  be  reciting  them 
to  the  angels.  If  by  oppression  and  cruelty  you  have  made 
the  widow  moan  and  the  orphan  wail,  that  moan  and  wail 
may  be  travelling  still,  and  will  probably  come  shrieking  into 
the  ears  of  the  Judgment. 

2.  Your  actions  are  immortalized  by  light.  Stand  before 
a  mirror,  or  speculum,  and  the  luminous  waves  undulating 
from  your  person  impress  your  image  there.  Whatever  ex- 
pression of  face  you  wear,  or  whatever  attitude  you  assume, 
the  image  exactly  corresponds  with  it.  In  the  space  between 
your  person  and  the  mirror  the  image  passes,  and  is  as  com- 
plete in  its  passage  in  every  inch  of  the  intervening  space,  as 
reflected  in  the  mirror,  yet  you  cannot  see  it.  The  mirror 
completely  stops  the  ethereal  undulations,  put  into  motion  by 
your  person,  and  from  its  polished  surface  reflects  them  back 
upon  you,  hence  you  see  your  image.  This  shows  that  these 
luminous  waves  are  capable  of  transmitting  the  perfect  image 
of  any  body  from  which  they  proceed.  If  they  transmit  it 
from  your  person  to  the  mirror  true  as  life,  you  being  the 
judge,  then  there  being  nothing  to  obstruct  them  they  can 
transmit  it  true  as  life  to  the  utmost  limits  of  their  extension, 
and  no  man  has  dared  to  assign  a  limit. 

Now,  remove  the  mirror,  and  there  being  no  obstruction 
to  stop  the  waves  of  ethereal  molecules  and  throw  them  back 
upon  your  vision  that  you  ma)-  see  yourself,  they  sweep  on 
forever  with  your  perfect  image  •  and  in  popular  language, 
the  rays  continually  departing  with  your  every  change  of 


RETRIBUTION.  245 

expression,  form,  or  posture,  weave  into  the  delicate  texture 
of  their,. flying  pencils  the  consecutive  history  of  your  every 
action,  from  your  birth  to  your  burial,  from  your  first  appear- 
ance till  you  pass  out  of  sight.  The  successive  actions  of 
your  life  borne  upon  the  successive  vibrations  of  the  univer- 
sal ether,  have  linked  out  your  history  in  one  consecutive 
chain,  glittering  in  its  ever-increasing  length  in  the  blaze  of 
God's  cognizance  and  the  brightness  of  angelic  cognition. 
To  read  your  life,  God  need  but  flash  His  great  eye  along 
the  chain  of  your  individual  history,  beginning  at  its  ulterior 
end,  and  terminating  where  it  interlinks  with  your  last  act. 
Or  if  angels  wish  to  read  it,  they  need  but  begin  at  the  same 
point  and  track  with  steady  wing  the  pathway  of  the  ethereal 
undulations,  coming  this  way,  and  reading  as  they  come,  till 
they  reach  you,  the  agent ;  or  standing  upon  the  remotest 
circumference  of  eternity's  grand  circle,  there,  wait  and  read 
as  the  undulations  arrive  and  pass  by — waving  on  till  they 
strike  the  dark  walls  marking  the  boundaries  of  the  kingdom 
of  Night,  and  reflected  back  duplicate  your  history  on  the 
other  side  of  the  universe. 

This  moment,  some  angel  on  some  point  in  the  immense 
fields  of  the  nebulae  may  be  reading  your  birth,  your  life,  and 
long  after  you  are  dead  from  the  fresh  arriving  vibrations 
read  your  funeral.  And  as  there  is  no  night  so  dark  but 
there  is  some  light,  and  as  light  is  more  subtile  than  the 
organism  of  the  human  eye  is  delicate,  and  therefore  may  be 
present  without  the  eye  perceiving  it,  so  there  may  be  enough 
light  present  in  the  darkest  night  to  preserve  by  ethereal 
vibrations  the  nocturnal  actions  of  men  that  the  stronger  eye 
of  God  and  spirits  may  be  able  to  take  cognizance  of  their 
images.  Or  if  it  is  true  that  the  chemical  rays  and  not  the 
luminous  are  used  in  the  process  of  photographing,  and  that 
presence  of  the  chemical  rays  does  not  argue  the  presence  of 
the  luminous,  then,  again,  human  actions  wrought  in  the  dark 


246  SERMONS. 

may  be  pictured  in  the  immense  galleries  of  the  universe  to 
be  seen  by  angels,  God,  yourself  and  fellows  by  and  by.  Is 
it  true  that  the  images  of  all  our  actions  are  now  sweeping 
upon  the  wings  of  light  in  pictured  and  panoramic  grandeur 
before  the  eyes  of  God  and  angels — or  unerasibly  and  in- 
effaceably  pencilled  or  photographed  in  unerring  truthfulness 
to  be  gazed  at  forever  ? 

3.  Your  thoughts  are  immortalized  by  Electricity.  You 
see  in  nature  that  certain  elements  have  an  affinity  for  each 
other,  and  that  they  combine  and  form  compounds.  You 
see  that  crystals  of  the  same  substances  in  crystallization, 
always  crystallize  in  the  same  way  and  form,  each  crystal  hav- 
ing the  same  angles  and  points,  as  is  seen  in  nitre,  salt,  and 
sugar.  The  question  naturally  arises,  What  is  the  secret 
of  chemical  affinities  and  combinations,  and  the  secret  of 
the  phenomena  of  crystallization  ?  Science  answers,  The 
formative  power  and  presence  of  electricity.  The  phe- 
nomena of  the  heavenly  bodies  within  telescopic  reach, 
declare  the  existence  of  compounds  and  crystallization  with 
them.  The  presumption  is,  therefore,  that  electricity  is 
universal. 

Again,  everything  in  nature  is  in  perfect  balance.  The 
gravity  and  motion  of  every  sun,  star,  planet,  and  comet,  is 
calculated  and  proportioned  to  maintain  the  equilibrium  of 
the  universe.  This  universal  law  controls  the  movements  of 
every  atom,  every  drop  of  water,  and  every  breath  of  air. 
It  is  also  true  in  its  application  to  electricity.  Electricity  is 
so  tenacious  of  a  perfect  equipoise,  that  disturb  its  equili- 
brium and  it  dances  in  sparks,  and  burns  in  the  lightning's 
flash  from  one  end  of  the  heaven  to  the  other.  Electro- 
dynamics, and  Electro-statics,  abound  in  illustrations.  If 
electricity  is  universal,  the  disturbance  of  its  equilibrium  in 
any  part  of  the  universe,  affects  its  equilibrium,  more  or 
less,  throughout  the  whole ;  and  as  it  is  constantly  at  work 


RETRIBUTION. 


247 


forming  compounds  its  anti-equilibrium  state  must  necessarily 
work  peculiarities  in  the  nature  of  the  compound,  corre 
sponding  to  the  nature  of  the  disturbance. 

We  discover  that  our  fingers,  hands,  arms,  limbs,  and  feet, 
can  be  put  in  motion  in  obedience  to  the  will.  Why  ? 
Distributed  in  the  substance  of  nearly  every  tissue  of  the 
body,  are  almost  numberless  fine  and  filiform  organs,  pro- 
ceeding from  the  brain  and  spinal  marrow,  called  nerves. 
These  nerves  are  of  the  same  substance  as  the  encephalon 
or  brain,  and  are  excellent  conductors  of  electricity.  The 
brain  is  a  galvanic  battery,  and  the  mind  is  the  electrician  or 
galvanologist.  The  mind  wills  the  movement  of  an  arm, 
the  brain  is  instantly  charged  with  electricity,  and  the  electric 
currents  flash  along  the  nerves  leading  from  the  brain  to  the 
muscles  of  the  arm,  the  muscles  under  their  influence  imme- 
diately contract,  the  arm  is  moved,  and  the  will  is  obeyed. 
Every  volition  and  thought  conceived  in  the  mind  implies 
the  action  of  the  brain.  Simultaneously  with  the  action,  in 
proportion  with  the  intensity  and  character  of  the  action, 
electric  currents  flash  upon  the  nervous  system  and  change 
the  electrical  condition  of  the  body. 

The  change  in  the  electrical  condition  of  man's  body 
changes  the  electrical  condition  of  other  bodies,  and  then 
still  others,  affecting  the  electrical  equilibrium  of  the  uni- 
verse, conveying  in  the  peculiarity  of  the  disturbance  your 
thoughts  and  volitions  throughout  immensity.  And  as  elec- 
tricity is  the  formative  power  in  compounding  simples,  and 
in  the  crystallization  of  substances,  it  inworks  your,  very 
thoughts  and  volitions  into  the  rocks  of  other  worlds,  or 
pencils  them  with  a  diamond  pen  upon  the  symmetric  angles 
and  pellucid  points  of  the  crystals  of  all  spheres,  in  and 
throughout  the  vast  system  of  universal  being.  The  Omni- 
scient God  who  can  discover  the  position  of  every  atom,  and 
the  reason  of  the  position,  need  but  glance  upon  the  rocky 


248  SERMONS. 

records  and  crystal  archives  of  the  universe  to  be  acq  lainted 
with  all  our  thoughts. 

Whether  a  man's  words,  acts,  and  thoughts  are  immortal- 
ized this  way  or  not,  the  second  proposition  laid  down  for 
elaboration  and  illustration  is  true  :  Sin  will  find  the  sinner 
out  by  the  exposure  of  the  especial  principle  and  act  of  sin 
of  which  the  sinner  is  guilty.  There  is  a  Great  Day  at  the 
end  of  man's  probation  as  a  race,  in  which  every  especial 
principle  and  act  of  sin  will  be  made  manifest.  The  fact  of 
the  manifestation  is  a  truth  of  revelation ;  the  manner  we  do 
not  know.  Every  sin  may  leave  its  appropriate  and  peculiar 
bias  upon  the  sinner's  character,  and  it  may  be  exposed  in 
that  day  by  the  simple  unmasking  of  his  character. 

Or,  every  sin,  in  virtue  of  man's  connection  with  the  sys- 
tem of  God  as  an  integral  part  of  the  system,  and  as  such 
entering  into  the  unity  of  the  system,  may  have  its  peculiar 
and  appropriate  bias  upon  the  system  in  some  way,  and 
therefore  may  be  exposed  in  the  day  of  Judgment  by  an 
exhibition  of  that  system,  as  truly  as  any  wound  in  man's 
body  may  be  exposed  years  afterwards  by  the  remaining 
cicatrix.  Or,  that  God,  who  never  forgets,  may  announce 
the  sins  of  the  sinner,  one  by  one,  in  the  hearing  of  an 
assembled  universe,  the  sinner  standing  in  the  meanwhile 
and  blushing  with  shame  in  the  full  view  of  every  eye.  Or, 
the  sinner  himself,  whose  own  memory  quickened  by  the 
circumstances  of  the  Judgment,  and  therefore  retaining  in 
wonderful  vividness  and  truth  every  sin  of  which  he  is 
guilty,  urged  on  by  the  blistering  lash  of  a  fired  conscience, 
may  confess  them,  every  one,  God  and  angels,  demons  and 
devils,  saints  and  sinners,  all  hearing. 

A.nd  the  righteous  themselves  may  not  escape  such  a  pub- 
lication. It  may  be  necessary  to  magnify  the  grace  of  God 
in  the  salvation  of  the  righteous,  to  show  forth  the  worth  of 
the  Saviour  received   by  some  and  rejected  by  others,  to 


RETRIBUTION.  249 

exhibit  the  effectiveness  of  the  plan  of  salvation  tj>  save  all, 
and  if  any  are  lost  it  is  their  own  fault,  to  justify  Himself  in 
the  minds  of  all  intelligent  beings  in  saving  some  and  damn- 
iiig  others,  and  to  make  such  an  exhibition  of  the  entire 
administration  of  His  government  affecting  man  that  all 
may  glorify  Him  in  the  recognition  both  of  His  mercy  and 
Justice,  that  every  sin  of  every  good  man  though  forgiven 
should  be  exposed.  Man's  relations  to  every  other  man, 
and  to  demons  and  angels  too,  may  make  this  necessary. 
What  an  awful  significance  is  imparted  to  the  text  in  the 
universality  of  its  application  :  "  Be  sure  your  sin  will  find 
you  out  !  " 

Sin  will  find  the  sinner  out.  By  the  exposure  of  the  sin- 
ner so  that  he  will  be  recognized  in  his  character  as  a  sinner, 
whenever  brought  in  contact  with  understanding  beings— 
this  was  the  first  proposition.  By  the  exposure  of  the  espe- 
cial principle  and  act  of  sin  of  which  the  sinner  is  guilty, 
was  the  second ;  now  : 

III.  Sin  will  find  the  sinner  out  by  the  i?ifliction  of  its 
penalty. — The  penalty  of  sin  is  death.  This  penalty  is  single, 
having  reference  only  to  the  soul,  and  has  not  that  trinal 
form  theologians  give  it,  and  which  they  express  by  the 
phrases,  Spiritual  death,  physical  death,  and  eternal  death. 
Spiritual  death,  or  death  of  the  soul,  is  the  penalty  of  sin  ; 
physical  death  is  but  a  consequence  of  the  penalty;  eternal 
death  is  but  the  continuation  of  the  penalty  beyond  pro- 
bation, aggravated  by  the  appalling  circumstances  of  the 
sinner's  future. 

Man's  capacity  for  spiritual  life  is  a  trinity  in  unity :  intel- 
lect, sensibilities,  and  conduct.  Spiritual  life  is  also  a  trinity 
in  unity,  having  a  principle,  an  essence,  and  a  development. 
Its  principle  is  faith  in  God  ;  its  essence  is  love  to  God  ; 
its  development  is  obedience  to  God.  The  trinity  in  unity 
in  spiritual  life  corresponds  with  man's  capacity  for  spiritual 


250  SERMONS. 

life.  When  man  is  spiritually  alive,  faith  in  God,  the  principle 
of  spiritual  life,  is  in  his  intellect  ;  love  to  God,  the  essence 
of  spiritual  life,  is  in  his  sensibilities  ;  obedience  to  God,  the 
development  of  spiritual  life,  is  in  his  conduct.  Such  a  man 
is  said  in  scriptural  language  to  have  God's  image,  and  the 
terms  used  by  Paul  as  descriptive  of  God's  image,  when  ex- 
amined scripturally  and  philologically,  correspond  exactly 
with  the  elements  of  spiritual  life  given  at  this  hour  with 
their  respective  agreement  with  the  threefold  capacity  of 
man  for  spiritual  life. 

Now  sin  is  also  a  trinity  in  unity.  It  has  a  principle, 
essence,  and  development.  Its  principle  is  unbelief,  its 
essence  is  enmity  to  God,  its  development  is  disobedience 
to  God.  Its  trinal  character  is  distinctly  revealed  in  the 
sin  of  the  woman  in  the  beginning.  When  sin  enters  the 
soul  its  principle,  unbelief,  takes  the  place  of  faith  in  God, 
the  principle  of  spiritual  life,  in  the  intellect ;  its  essence, 
enmity  to  God,  takes  the  place  of  love  to  God,  the  essence 
of  spiritual  life,  in  the  sensibilities ;  and  its  development, 
disobedience  to  God,  takes  the  place  of  Obedience  to  God, 
the  development  of  spiritual  life,  in  the  conduct — and  the 
man  is  dead. 

Sin,  this  Cerberus,  this  three-headed  dog  of  hell,  has 
broken  out  of  his  Stygian  kennel,  and  his  infernal  yelpings 
have  driven  in  some  instances  everything  in  the  shape  of 
virtue  to  the  dens  of  the  mountains.  But  a  plenipotent 
Evangel  is  on  his  track  with  burning  whip,  and  1  humbly 
pray  God  that  He  may  lash  him  to  the  ends  of  the  world, 
and  there  seizing  him  by  his  accursed  throat,  lift  him 
writhing  into  mid-air,  and  fling  him  with  awful  momentum 
into  the  nethermost  hell,  to  bay  Eternal  Darkness  in  Eternal 
Darkness' s  own  dread  dungeons,  and  howl  the  everlasting 
bass  in  hell's  uproar,  while  eternal  ages  travel  on  in  their 
never  ending  march. 


RETRIBUTION.  25 1 

The  principle,  essence,  and  development  of  sin,  as  also 
the  principle,  essence,  and  development  of  spiritual  life, 
are  genera — yes,  causative  genera — under  which  all  that 
enters  into  the  composition  of  the  sum  total  of  moral  char- 
acter group  themselves.  And  whatever  is  sin  produces 
spiritual  death,  and  it  does  it  simultaneously  with  the  ap- 
propriation of  the  sin  in  the  sense  of  ownership  upon  the 
part  of  the  creature,  and  by  the  creature's  incurrence  of 
guilt.  Death  is  the  necessary  penalty  of  sin.  and  is  as  in- 
separably connected  with  it  as  effect  is  to  cause.  Indeed, 
death  is  but  the  result  of  the  philosophic  action  of  sin  upon 
the  human  character  necessitated  from  the  very  philosophy 
of  sin's  constitution.  Wherever  you  find  a  sinner,  you  find  a 
dead  soul.  There  is  a  difference  between  life  and  existence, 
therefore  there  is  a  difference  between  death  and  annihila- 
tion. The  soul  consciously  exists,  yet  is  dead.  If  whenever 
you  find  a  sinner,  you  find  a  dead  soul,  the  converse  is 
true  ;  whenever  you  find  a  dead  soul,  you  find  a  sinner. 

Spiritual  death  itself,  independent  of  any  symptomatic 
effects  of  sin  upon  the  character,  presents  an  appropriate 
diagnosis  by  which  it  is  cognizable.  Is  the  sinner  unhappy  ? 
This  is  an  element  in  the  diagnosis,  by  which  we  know  the 
soul  is  dead ;  his  sin  has  found  him  out  in  the  infliction  of  its 
penalty.  Is  there  a  horrid  vacuum  within?  Is  his  con- 
stitution abnormal  ?  Does  his  conscience  lash  him  ?  Is  he 
separated  from  God  ?  Has  he  lost  his  subjective  and  ob- 
jective harmony  ?  Do  passions,  abominations,  and  demons 
riot  like  vermin  in  the  rottenness  of  his  dead  soul  ?  His  sin 
has  found  him  out  in  the  infliction  of  its  penalty  ;  and  "  the 
wages  of  sin  is  death,"  and  when  "sin  is  finished  it  bringeth 
forth  death." 

Sin  is  a  serpent  whose  bite  infuses  a  virus  into  the  moral 
constitution  which  produces  horrid  death.  You  all  remem- 
ber  the  fabulous  monster,  the   Hydra,  which   dwelt   in   the 


252  SERMONS. 

lake  or  marsh  of  Lerna,  in  Peloponnesus,  which  had  a  mul- 
titude of  heads,  which  spread  terror  and  destruction  through 
the  land.  It  was  assaulted  many  times,  yet  was  not  con 
quered,  for  as  quickly  as  one  head  was  severed,  anothei 
would  immediately  succeed  it  unless  the  wound  was  cauter- 
ized. Hercules  finally  killed  the  monstrous  serpent  by 
applying  firebrands  to  the  wounded  necks  as  he  cut  off  the 
heads.  Sin  is  a  serpent  of  more  fearful  power  and  form  ; 
and  though  it  may  wear  at  times  an  epidermis  of  glittering 
beauty,  it  is  a  serpent  still— a  serpent  of  many  a  horrid  fold 
and  snaky  coil.  Its  heads  are  multiplied  so  there  is  a 
crowned  head  with  poisonous  fangs,  and  flashing  eyes,  and 
forked  tongue,  and  deadly  breath,  for  every  land.  Its  huge 
form  bathes  in  every  sea,  and  its  heads  protrude  on  every 
shore. 

Often  has  he  been  attacked  by  sainted  philanthropists  of 
earth,  and  as  often  have  they  failed,  for  when  their  glittering 
sabres  descended  and  a  head  bit  the  dust — marvellous  power 
of  reproduction! — another,  with  twofold  fury,  reared  its 
dreadful  crest,  and  bid  defiance  to  all  human  effort.  Such 
a  monster  is  at  our  very  feet,  his  scaly  trunk  upreared,  and 
his  writhing  necks  and  hissing  heads  are  oscillating  and  strik- 
ing all  around  us,  and  bleeding  at  every  pore,  the  insinuating 
poison  of  death  coursing  every  vein  of  the  body  and  sear- 
ing every  fibre  of  the  soul,  we  are  dying,  dying — and  the 
host  of  the  dead  is  a  ghastly  evidence  of  the  truth  of  the 
text  :  "  Be  sure  your  sin  will  find  you  out." 

Yet  this  monstrous  beast  is  loved,  fed,  fostered,  and  wor- 
shipped throughout  the  world.  Men  are  sinners ;  they  sin 
wilfully,  they  sin  systematically,  they  sin  professionally,  they 
sin  individually,  they  sin  socially,  they  sin  nationally  ;  till 
every  stream  that  flows  is  stained  with  human  crimes,  and 
every  breeze  that  blows  is  corrupted  with  a  moral  miasma, 
and  every  arrow  of  light  flung  by  the  god  of  day  from  his 


RETRIBUTION.  253 

golden  quiver  is  blackened.  Scarcely  an  angel  dare  touch 
this  cursed  earth  in  his  flight  from  sphere  to  sphere  without 
pollution. 

The  Judgments  of  the  Almighty  from  age  to  age,  and  the 
machinery  of  the  world's  civilization  in  full  motion  from 
Adam  till  now,  have  not  abolished  sin  out  of  any  one  country 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  Prayers,  sermons,  books,  insti- 
tutions, laws,  penalties,  governments,  all  combined,  have  not 
blotted  out  one  vice  from  sin's  black  calendar.  The  life, 
miracles,  sufferings,  crucifixion,  resurrection,  ascension,  and 
teachings  of  Christ;  the  examples,  works,  importunities, 
deaths,  and  triumphs  of  His  followers ;  the  confessions  and 
warnings  of  millions  who  have  died  testifying  to  their  ever- 
lasting condemnation  ;  the  strivings  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  the 
curses  of  the  law  ;  the  promises  of  the  Gospel ;  the  horrors 
of  hell,  and  the  beauties  of  heaven  —  all  these  have  not 
driven  sin  out  of  one  neighborhood  in  the  world. 

Sin  is  an  immense  river  running  through  secret  channels 
from  hell's  seething  ocean,  till  it  broke  out  upon  this  world  in 
the  garden  of  Eden.  There  at  the  footltef  the  tree  of  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil  is  its  source — a  noisy  spring  bubbling 
with  the  escape  of  baneful  gases,  in  whose  tenebrious  depths 
a  serpent  lives.  Ever  enlarging,  this  river  flows  all  round 
the  world.  Onward  it  sweeps.  Upon  its  banks  no  flowers 
grow,  no  foliage  waves,  but  perpetual  desolation  pitches  its 
pavilions  upon  the  sterile  strand,  relieved  here  and  there 
by  bald  and  scoriae  rocks,  upon  which  weeping  spirits  sit 
and  curse  the  day  that  they  were  born.  In  all  the  universe 
there  is  no  river  so  wide,  so  deep,  so  swift  as  this.  Its  floods 
are  black,  its  waves  are  towering,  and  it  goes  surging  and 
roaring  on  to  the  bottomless  lake,  everlasting  lightnings  pen- 
cilling every  billowy  crest  with  angry  fire,  and  Hell's  terrific 
thunders  bounding  from  bank  to  bank  and  bursting  with 
awful  crash  and  strewing  dread  ruin  all  around. 


254  SERMONS. 

Surely  such  a  river  might  roll  on  forever  unvisited  by 
mortal  man.  But,  oh,  alas  !  climax  of  all  wonders  !  quin- 
tessence of  all  marvels  !  its  shores  are  lined  from  source  to 
mouth  with  human  wretches.  They  crowd  to  gain  its  edges, 
all  sexes,  all  conditions,  all  classes.  The  mother  decks  hei 
daughter's  brow,  and  side  by  side  they  leap  into  the  boister- 
ous flood.  Into  its  boiling  current  the  young  maiden  runs 
laughing,  and  passes  from  sight  in  a  moment ;  the  old  man 
following,  his  hoary  locks  streaming  in  the  wind  like  the 
shredded  canvas  of  a  storm-ridden  ship  reeling  upon  the 
foamy  summit  of  a  stupendous  wave  that  washes  heaven,  but 
to  be  hurled  the  next  moment  by  the  driving  blast  into  the 
raging  vortex  below,  and  be  swallowed  up  forever.  Be- 
tween every  human  being  and  this  fearful  river  there  is  a 
bleeding  body  and  a  bloody  cross,  and  angels  posited  on. 
every  height  and  hovering  over  every  head  and  shouting 
"  Stop  /  " — "  in  the  name  of  God,  pause  but  for  a  moment," 
— but  disregarding  the  angelic  warning  and  trampling  upon 
both  body  and  cross,  with  gory  feet  they  spring  far  out  into 
the  murky  tide,  and  join  their  fellows,  till  every  wave  is 
freighted  and  instinct  with  human  souls,  and  all  together 
carried  onward  and  in  one  eternal  roar  poured  over  the 
boundaries  of  human  probation  into  Acheron's  fiery  sea, 
forced  downward  by  the  plunging  floods  to  perdition's  deep- 
est dungeons,  to  rise  far  out  from  shore  upon  flaming  waves 
unquenchable  to  scream  forever  with  unmitigated  and  cease- 
less woe. 

Rivers  never  run  more  truly  to  the  ocean,  than  the  river 
of  sin. runs  to  hell,  and  there  at  last,  if  never  before,  sin  will 
find  the  sinner  out  by  the  infliction  of  its  ultimate  penalty — 
Eternal  Death  !  Two  more  dreadful  words  were  never 
joined  together — Eternal — Death.  Each  term  rendered  in- 
expressibly awful  by  the  associated  meaning  of  the  other. 
It  is  the  death  of  the  soul  eternized.     It  is  separation  from 


RETRIBUTION.  255 

God,  the  source  of  life,  forever.  It  is  separation  front  virtue 
and  happiness,  forever.  It  is  separation  from  heaven,  angels, 
and  sainted  ones,  forever.  It  is  separation  from  all  that  is 
beautiful,  and  good,  forever.  It  is  separation  from  all  in- 
tellectual, social,  and  moral  pursuits,  which  seem  to  accord 
with  man's  nature  and  destiny  as  an  immortal  being,  and  as 
the  offspring  of  God,  and  it  is  separation  forever.  It  is 
companionship  with  Satan,  demons,  and  the  damned,  in  hell, 
forever.  It  is  bitter  memories,  tormenting  remorse,  and 
agonizing  despair,  forever.  It  is  to  be  wicked  without  the 
hope  or  power  of  repentance,  to  be  miserable  without  miti- 
gation, to  be  both,  forever.  It  is  the  utter  subversion  and 
destruction  of  the  unity  and  harmony  of  man's  nature,  and 
the  total  failure  of  his  life  in  the  accomplishment  of  any- 
thing worthy  of  him,  and  both,  forever.  It  is  the  aggrega- 
tion of  all  sorrows,  pains,  woes,  and  horrors,  mixed  in  one 
fearful  beverage  to  be  drunken,  forever.  It  is  to  be  lost  in 
hell  or  lost  in  outer  darkness  beyond  the  circle  of  universal 
being,  forever.  Oh,  that  we  could  get  rid  of  that  little  word, 
with  a  significance  as  high,  wide,  and  deep  as  God,  that  little 
word,  forever.  My  hearers,  it  is  Death,  and  Death  forevei 
— Eternal  Death. 


SERMON  XIX. 

peter's  defection  from  christ. 

"Then  took  they  him,  and  led  him,  and  brought  him  into  the  high 
priest's  house.     And  Peter  followed  afar  off. 

"And  when  they  had  kindled  a  fire  in  the  midst  of  the  hall,  and  were 
set  down  together,  Peter  sat  down  among  them. 

"But  a  certain  maid  beheld  him  as  he  sat  by  the  fire,  and  earnestly 
looked  upon  him  and  said,  This  man  was  also  with  him. 

"And  he  denied  him,  saying,  Woman,  I  know  him  not. 

"  After  a  little  while  another  saw  him,  and  said,  Thou  art  also  of  them. 
And  Peter  said,  Man,  I  am  not. 

"And  about  the  space  of  one  hour  after,  another  confidently  affirmed, 
saying,  Of  a  truth  this  fellow  also  was  with  him,  for  he  is  a  Galilean. 

"  And  Peter  said,  Man,  I  know  not  what  thou  sayest.  And  immediately, 
while  he  yet  spake,  the  cock  crew. 

"And  the  Lord  turned,  and  looked  upon  Peter.  And  Peter  remembered 
the  word  of  the  Lord,  how  he  had  said  unto  him,  Before  the  cock  crow, 
thou  shalt  deny  me  thrice. 

"And  Peter  went  out  and  wept  bitterly." — Luke  xxii.  54-62. 

THE  text  is  one  of  the  Bible's  most  impressive  and 
instructive  narratives — not  one  for  unity  of  discourse, 
for  compacted  and  elaborate  argument,  but  from  the  circum- 
stances of  which  we  may  learn  several  valuable  lessons. 

I.  Christ  forewarned  Peter  of  his  danger.  "All  ye  shall 
be  offended  because  of  me  this  night ;  for  it  is  written,  I  will 
smite  the  shepherd,  and  the  sheep  of  the  flock  shall  be 
scattered  abroad" — "offended,"  i.  e.,  lose  confidence  in  him 
and  forsake  him.  Peter  answered  :  "  Though  all  men  should 
be  offended  because  of  thee,  yet  will  I  never  be  offended." 
"  Simon,  Simon,  behold  Satan  hath  desired  to  have  you  that 


PETER'S  DEFECTION.  257 

he  might  sift  you  as  wheat,  but  I  have  prayed  for  thee,  that 
thy  faith  fail  not :  and  when  thou  art  converted  strengthen 
thy  brethren," — /.  e.,  fail  not  utterly.  Peter  replied  imme- 
diately :  "  Lord,  I  am  ready  to  go  with  thee,  both  into  prison 
and  to  death."  Christ  then  tells  him  :  "  Whither  I  go,  thou 
canst  not  follow  me  now,  but  thou  shalt  follow  me  after- 
wards." Peter  exclaims  with  the  full  fervency  of  his  soul : 
"  Lord,  why  cannot  I  follow  thee  now  ?  I  will  lay  down  my 
life  for  thy  sake."  Well  said,  Peter.  Christ  said  :  "  Wilt 
thou  lay  down  thy  life  for  my  sake  ?  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  thee,  the  cock  shall  not  crow  till  thou  hast  denied  me 
thrice." 

Peter  earnestly  loved  Jesus.  Where,  then,  was  his  error? 
He  was  spiritually  feeble — so  feeble  that  notwithstanding 
his  avowed  purpose  to  die  for  Christ,  he  could  not  watch 
with  him  one  hour  in  the  garden.  Peter  was  fallen,  and 
being  fallen  was  to  some  degree  separated  from  God,  and 
like  plants  deprived  of  the  light  of  the  sun  his  powers  were 
enfeebled  to  so  great  a  degree,  as  to  be  incapable  of  them- 
selves for  effectual  resistance  to  sin.  He  was  connected 
with  a  sensual  world  by  a  sensual  organism,  by  his  residence, 
existence,  and  associations,  and  his  connection  with  the 
spiritual  was  so  remote  and  imperfect,  that  the  adverse  in- 
fluence of  surrounding  circumstances  was  too  potent  for  his 
own  strength. 

He  was  beset  with  powerful  enemies  incognizable  to  his 
material  senses,  whose  spiritual  nature  gave  them  immediate 
ingress  to  his  soul,  and  whose  intelligence  made  them  mas- 
ters of  his  motives  and  defects,  and  whose  characters  only 
prompted  them  to  do  evil.  Their  power  over  Peter  was 
fearfully  increased,  when  the  very  promptings  of  his  own 
nature,  as  distinguished  from  his  moral  sense,  inclined  him 
to  do  that  which  they  desired  him  to  do,  and  which  they 
would  tempt  him  to  perform.     The  will  does  not  always 


258  SERMONS. 

choose  what  it  is  capable  of  choosing  ;  but  Peter's  will  did 
not  escape  the  blasting  and  debilitating  influences  of  sin,  and 
was  unable  of  itself  to  maintain  an  inflexibility  of  decision 
when  opposing  circumstances. arrived  at  a  certain  degree  of 
power.  He  was  spiritually  feeble.  What  was  true  of  Peter 
is  true  of  all  of  us  in  a  natural  state. 

He  was  unacquainted  with  his  spiritual  feebleness.  His 
ignorance  was  criminal  ;  he  might  have  known  better.  Ig- 
norance is  subversive  of  man's  dignity,  destructive  of  man's 
usefulness,  his  virtue,  his  happiness.  Ignorant  men  are  ex- 
tremists and  enthusiasts  in  religion.  They  may  possess 
religion  and  be  saved  when  they  die,  but  their  capacities  are 
so  contracted,  that  in  the  absence  of  an  unbridled  and  pro- 
scriptive  fanaticism  they  are  ciphers  in  the  religious  world. 
Their  religion  is  not  one  of  steady,  substantial,  consistent, 
and  invincible  principles,  that  like  the  towering  rocks  of 
Teneriffe  hurl  back  unscathed  and  uninjured  the  stormy  surges 
of  the  stormiest  ocean,  but  the  extravagant  manifestation 
of  a  malformed  sentimentality,  at  once  fanatical,  unreason- 
able, and  obstreperous.  Voluntary  ignorance  is  a  great  sin, 
and  sinful  ignorance  is  the  cause  of  the  greatest  evils  that 
ever  afflicted  the  human  race.  uMy  people  are  destroyed 
for  lack  of  knowledge"  Peter's  ignorance  was  ignorance 
of  himself.  Knowledge  of  self  is  the  greatest  of  all  knowl- 
edge. Know  thyself  is  a  law  as  imperative  as  if  written 
upon  a  table  of  stone. 

Peter  was  self-confide?it.  This  was  the  result  of  his  ig- 
norance of  himself.  Had  he  known  the  feebleness  of  his 
moral  powers  he  would  not  have  confided  in  them  in  the  day 
of  trial.  His  bigoted  self-confidence  was  sinful  because  it 
was  the  result  of  a  sinful  ignorance.  Causes  always  import 
their  moral  character  to  their  natural  effects.  It  was  sinful, 
because  it  was  self-confidence  with  relation  to  a  strength 
which  was  the  prerogative  of  grace  to  confer.     Hence,  it  ig- 


PETER'S   DEFECTION.  259 

nored  God — ignored  God's  grace — ignored  God's  plan  for 
saving  sinners.  "  Pride  goeth  before  destruction,  and  a 
haughty  spirit  before  a  fall." 

He  was  self-reliant.  This  was  the  result  of  his  self-con- 
fidence. The  Christian's  strength  in  trial,  temptation,  or 
spiritual  danger  does  not  consist  in  the  summoning  up  of 
his  own  resolutions,  and  doggedly  relying  upon  them.  No  ! 
he  is  only  strong  when  he  goes  out  of  himself  and  by  faith 
lays  hold  upon  a  higher  power — upon  God.  As  paradoxical 
as  it  is,  his  strength  is  in  his  weakness — when  he  relies  upon 
himself  his  power  is  finite  :  when  he  uses  not  his  own  powers, 
but  relies  only  on  God  as  the  source  of  his  strength,  his 
power  is  infinite. 

As  a  logical  result  of  his  self-confidence  and  self-reliance 
he  became  carnally  secure.  A  felt  security  is  fraught  with 
great  danger.  "  Security  is  mortal's  chiefest  enemy."  Let 
a  perfect  security  reign  in  an  army  in  the  land  of  an  enemy, 
and  any  man  can  see  there  would  be  a  corresponding  weak- 
ening. Felt  security  disarms  vigilance,  and  removes  the  felt 
necessity  for  discipline.  Christians  are  in  the  land  of  an 
ever  vigilant  and  accomplished  strategic  adversary.  Peter 
felt  secure,  hence  he  was  unprepared  when  danger  came. 
But  his  security  was  of  the  most  dangerous  kind — it  was 
Carnal  Security.  Carnal,  camalis,  from  car  no,  flesh.  It 
was  security  founded  upon  the  powers  of  the  flesh — a  re- 
ligious resolution  with  nothing  to  back  it  but  the  deceitful 
and  treacherous  attributes  of  the  flesh,  already  sold  to  the 
Devil,  and  pledged  to  betray  the  resolution  into  the  hands  of 
the  enemy  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  engagement.  It  was 
a  religious  purpose  whose  essence  consisted  in  being  opposed 
to  the  flesh,  yet  fortifying  itself  in  the  dominions  of  the  flesh, 
and  surrendering  into  the  hands  of  the  flesh  the  keeping  and 
defence  of  its  fortifications.  Says  Peter,  "  I  will  lay  down 
my  life  for  thy  sake  "—a  sublime  religious  purpose  !     The 


260  SERMONS. 

flesh  would  certainly  resist  such  a  sacrifice,  for  it  would  in- 
volve the  sacrifice  of  itself.  A  dependence  upon  the  flesh  to 
execute  such  a  purpose,  would  but  result  in  its  utter  defeat. 

Carnal  security  is  a  bed  of  flowers  on  the  salient  brink  of 
hell.  There  lies  the  sleeper.  Beneath  him  the  fiery  surges 
of  woe  toss  dreadfully,  and  rush  with  a  howl  of  horror  upon 
their  impregnable  boundaries  of  lightning-scarred  scoriae 
rock — jarring  all  the  shores  till  the  crags  upon  which  the 
slumberer  dreams  break  away  from  their  fastenings  and  go 
crashing  dovvn,  down,  from  light  through  darkness,  and  he 
awakes  in  the  nethermost  hell. 

Carnal  security  is  symbolized  by  Bunyan  in  his  Enchanted 
Ground,  the  last  danger  between  the  City  of  Destruction  and 
the  Celestial  City ;  and  well  classed  by  him  as  the  greatest 
danger  between  earth  and  heaven.  It  appears  to  be  Satan's 
last  effort.  The  most  dangerous  state  is  when  a  man  is  satis- 
fied and  his  satisfaction  lulls  into  sleep  every  watchful  power. 
Is  not  this  the  condition  of  a  portion  of  this  congregation  ? 
"  Woe  to  them  that  are  at  ease  in  Zion  ! "     Ease  /     Woe  / 

Christ's  warnings  to  Peter  are  an  exhibition  of  His  Omni- 
science, involving  knowledge  of  the  future.  Without  pre- 
science of  future  events,  Christ  could  not  prepare  us  by  provi- 
dential dispensations,  as  he  does  in  many  instances,  for  future 
calamities. 

Knowing  what  trials  await  us,  Christ  warns  us  as  He  did 
Peter.  He  warns  us  in  His  Word.  Monuments  of  apostasy 
stand  out  upon  the  pages  of  Sacred  History  and  bid  us 
" Beware!"  The  wretched  Saul  in  the  miserable  hovel  of 
the  witch  of  Endor,  in  his  complaint  to  Samuel,  warns  us  in 
a  voice  which  makes  the  blood  creep  cold  in  our  veins, 
"  God  has  departed  from  me."  Solomon,  who  had  been  the 
recipient  of  the  choice  bounties  of  heaven,  in  his  old  age, 
under  the  curse  of  an  incensed  God,  surveys  his  wealth,  his 
kingly  magnificence,  his  years  of  debauchery  and  idolatry, 


PETER'S  DEFECTION.  26 1 

and  exclaims,  "All  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit."  Look 
at  the  horrid  end  of  Judas  the  traitor,  and  take  heed  how  you 
sell  your  Lord.  Hear  the  awful  "Anathema,  Maranatha," 
of  the  Apostle  upon  the  Gentile  apostates  in  every  age  and 
clime — "  anathema,"  accursed  ;  "  maranatha,"  the  Lord  will 
come  in  vengeance. 

Hear  further:  "But  when  the  righteous  turneth  away  from 
his  righteousness,  and  committeth  iniquity,  ....  shall  he  live? 
All  his  righteousness  he  hath  done  shall  not  be  mentioned : 
in  his  trespass  and  in  his  sins,  in  them  shall  he  die  "  (Ezekiel 
xviii.  24).  "  The  last  state  of  that  man  shall  be  worse 
than  the  first."  "It  had  been  better  not  to  have  known  the 
way  of  righteousness,  than,  after  they  have  known  it,  to  turn 
from  the  holy  commandment  delivered  unto  them. "  Read 
the  warning  to  the  churches  of  Asia,  and  think  of  their  his- 
tory in  connection  with  the  threatenings  pronounced  for  their 
defection  from  Christ : — "  I  will  come  unto  thee  quickly  and 
will  remove  thy  candlestick  out  of  his  place."  Read  the 
whole  verse  and  apply  it  to  this  congregation  :  "  Thou  hast 
left  thy  first  love  ;  repent,  and  do  the  first  works,  or  else  I  will 
come  unto  thee  quickly  and  will  remove  thy  candlestick  out 
of  his  place."  This  congregation  is  full  of  backsliders.  Like 
weights  they  hang  upon  the  wheels  of  the  church.  They  are 
in  the  way  of  the  church,  in  the  way  of  sinners,  in  the  way  of 
the  minister,  in  the  way  to  hell.  Why  did  you  leave  Jesus? 
What  wrong  did  He  to  you  ?  You  must  die.  But  Jesus 
prays  for  us,  as  He  prayed  for  Peter :  "  Neither  pray  I  for 
these  alone,  but  for  them  also  which  shall  believe  on  me 
through  their  word." 

II.  But  notwithstanding  Peter  was  warned  of  his  danger 
he  fell.  Jesus,  through  the  treachery  of  Judas,  was  arrested 
in  the  garden,  bound,  and  led  off  towards  Jerusalem.  His 
disciples  forsook  him  and  fled— all  but  two,  John  and  Peter. 
John,  however,  kept  close  to  his  Master,  determined  to  share 


262  SERMONS. 

his  infamy,  and  if  necessary  die  with  him.  But  where, 
where  was  Peter,  who  made  so  many  promises,  and  formed 
such  bold  resolutions  ?  The  account  is,  "  Peter  followed  afar 
off." 

"  Followed  afar  off."  This  was  the  first  step  m  Peter's 
defection  from  Christ — he  "followed"  Jesus,  however.  That 
he  followed  Jesus  is  evidence  that  he  still  loved  his  Saviour. 
But  he  followed  "  afar  off,"  he  was  ashamed  to  confess 
Jesus  now  that  he  was  in  disgrace.  His  love  for  self  more 
than  balanced  his  love  for  Christ.  He  follows,  but  it  is  at 
such  distance  as  to  make  it  safe  to  do  so.  Jesus  loved 
Peter  ;  Jesus  prayed  for  him  ;  Jesus  honored  him  with  a  call 
to  the  discipleship  ;  Jesus  healed  the  sickness  in  his  family  ; 
made  him  his  confidant  ;  gave  him  a  glimpse  of  his  Divine 
glory  on  Tabor;  yet  Peter  was  ashamed  of  him — ingrati- 
tude  ASHAMED  OF    JESUS  ! 

I  have  seen  the  ungrateful  beneficiary  blush  with  shame 
before  his  benefactor.  I  have  seen  the  blush  of  shame  man- 
tle the  brow  of  the  professor  of  religion,  when  asked  publicly 
to  acknowledge  Christ.  1  have  seen  the  detected  thief 
bowed  down  with  shame  before  the  courts  of  our  country. 
I  have  seen  the  youth  ashamed  when  detected  by  his  parents 
in  unbecoming  and  vicious  associations — ashamed  because 
they  had  violated  human  obligations.  But  I  have  seen  the 
sinner  avow  his  ingratitude  to  his  noblest,  best,  and  truest 
friend — that  friend  who  loved  him,  made,  protected,  pre- 
served, clothed,  fed,  and  died  for  him,  and  daily  add  to  his 
ingratitude  by  studied  wrong,  without  a  blush  of  shame — yea, 
glory  in  it — boast  of  it  as  if  it  was  some  great  thing  of 
which  he  was  proud.  1  have  seen  him  rob  that  friend  of 
that  which  he  himself  and  all  the  world  acknowledged  was 
his  due.  I  have  seen  him  treat  that  friend,  though  that 
friend  was  in  the  very  act  of  doing  what  all  the  world  and  he 
himself  acknowledged  to  be  the  greatest   favor,  with  cruel 


PETER'S   DEFECTION.  263 

scorn  and  unkind  neglect — all  without  shame.  I  have  seen 
him  at  the  same  time  publicly  endorse  every  act  of  insult 
and  injury  to  that  friend  perpetrated  by  Devils  or  men,  and 
exhibit  no  shame.  Every  sinner  endorses  all  that  is  sin — all 
the  murders,  adulteries,  seductions,  and  robberies  in  the 
history  of  iniquity,  because  they  are  all  sins  and  he  is  a  sin- 
ner ;  because,  from  the  nature  of  the  two  antagonistic  moral 
qualities,  good  and  evil,  there  is  no  medium  ground  ;  because, 
in  the  contest  between  good  and  evil,  he  is  on  the  side  of 
evil,  and  contributes  the  whole  weight  of  his  character  and 
influence  to  defend  it  against  the  aggressions  of  Christianity  ; 
because  he  is  in  an  antagonistic  position  to  Christianity,  the 
only  thing  which  can  destroy  sin ;  because  he  does  all  this 
in  open  daylight,  without  shame.  Yet  the  same  man  would 
dislike  to  be  found  upon  his  knees  in  secret  prayer.  "Who- 
soever shall  be  ashamed  of  me  and  my  words,  in  this  adul- 
terous and  sinful  generation,  of  him  also  shall  the  Son  of 
man  be  ashamed,  when  he  cometh  in  the  glory  of  his 
Father  with  the  holy  angels."  From  shame  and  fear  Peter 
followed  Christ  "  afar  off."  This  was  the  first  step  in  his 
defection  from  Christ.  No  wonder  he  sinned.  This  is  the 
first  step  in  every  backslider's  departure.  In  proportion  as 
men  are  distant  from  Christ  the  less  His  influence  over 
them.  They  have  less  light,  less  love,  and  less  life.  There- 
fore, the  greater  the  influence  of  the  world,  flesh  and  Devil, 
the  less  restraining  and  preventing  grace  they  have,  and  the 
more  easily  they  are  tempted. 

Many  of  this  church  are  following  Jesus  "  afar  off." 
They  are  on  the  highway  to  apostasy.  Does  any  inquiring 
sinner  in  this  house  wish  to  know  them,  that  he  may  not 
be  deceived  in  the  adoption  of  a  spurious  Christianity  by 
their  example  ?  I  will  describe  them  to  you— and  mark  them 
well.  When  our  church  bells,  which  will  soon  toll  out  oar 
funerals,  pour  their  resounding  intonations  along  every  street 


264  SERMONS. 

and  alley  of  our  town,  call  to  the  house  of  God,  they  query, 
"  Who  will  fill  the  pulpit  to-day  ?  "  The  admirers  of.  Paul 
will  not  hear  Cephas,  and  vice  versa.  That  all  persons 
should  have  ministerial  favorites  is  right  as  well  as  natural. 
We  cannot  blame  irreligious  people  for  acting  on  this  princi- 
ple, but  it  is  exceedingly  culpable  in  professors  of  religion. 
They  love  the  preaching  better  than  the  preacher's  Saviour, 
or  they  would  wait  upon  the  ministrations  of  any  of  Jesus' 
messengers  for  the  Master's  sake.  They  are  following  Jesus 
"afar  off." 

Again,  on  the  Lord's  day  they  are  found  lazily  sauntering 
along  the  streets,  or  sitting  at  the  corners,  in  shameful  dese- 
cration of  the  Sabbath.  They  will  work  all  the  week  for 
themselves,  and  will  not  work  one  day  for  Jesus.  When  you 
see  them,  sinner,  take  my  word  for  it  they  are  following 
Jesus  "afar  off."  Don't  emulate  their  example.  Again, 
when  God's  people  meet  in  the  prayer-meeting,  or  to  con- 
verse with  each  other  about  Jesus  in  the  class-room,  they 
are  at  home  or  elsewhere,  yielding  to  an  indisposition  for 
spiritual  worship,  which  strengthens  every  time  they  yield  to 
it,  which  indisposition  is  declarative  of  a  low  state  of  grace, 
and  demonstrative  of  the  great  distance  at  which  they  are 
following  their  Lord — "  afar  off.'" 

Again,  they  are  often  found  indulging  a  fault-finding,  im- 
patient, and  complaining  spirit.  They  complain  of  the  degen- 
eracy of  the  times  in  place  of  putting  their  shoulders  to  the 
wheels  and  making  the  times  better.  They  are  always  prat- 
ing about  the  faults  of  their  brethren  to  others.  This  they 
do  for  several  reasons :  i.  If  they  can  direct  public  atten- 
tion to  others'  faults,  their  own  personal  errors  are  over- 
looked, or  do  not  appear  so  aggravated.  2.  Because  it  is  a 
sort  of  a  quietus  to  conscience  for  personal  faults  to  keep 
their  own  minds  impressed  with  the  faults  of  others.  3.  They 
love  to  slander.     If  they  wished  to  correct  the  errors  of  their 


PETER'S   DEFECTION.  265 

brethren  they  would  talk  to  them,  but  they  talk  to  others. 
They  are  following  Jesus  "  afar  off,"  or  they  would  have 
more  of  his  spirit.  I  might  mention  the  professor  of  religion 
who  drinks  his  dram,  who  is  wilfully  slack  in  paying  his 
debts,  who  neglects  to  keep  his  word,  who  lives  beyond  his 
means,  who  idles  away  his  time,  who  is  envious  of  his  neigh- 
bor— David  envied  his  neighbor,  and  he  has  said  his  feet  well 
nigh  slipped — I  do  not  say  you  are  hypocrites,  that  would  be 
unjust — Peter  was  no  hypocrite — but  I  do  say  you  are  fol- 
lowing Jesus  "afar  off."  Come  up  to  the  cross.  Brethren, 
I  love  you,  but  I  can  do  no  good  this  year  unless  you  help 
me. 

But  mark  the  second  step  in  Peter's  fall.  Jesus  is  sur- 
rounded by  an  immense  throng  in  the  hall  of  the  high-priest, 
with  John  by  his  side ;  Peter  is  sitting  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
company  with  some  servants,  warming  himself — he  is  in 
bad  company : — following  Jesus  "afar  off."  It  is  just  where 
I  would  expect  to  find  him.  Evil  associations  are  a  sure  road 
to  apostasy.  When  a  man's  religion  is  declining  these  are 
the  associations  he  seeks,  and  he  seeks  them  more  and 
Christian  associations  less,  in  the  same  ratio  with  his  decline. 
Peter,  relieved  of  the  moral  restraints  of  good  associations,  is 
now  easily  destroyed.  A  maid  accuses  him :  "  This  man 
was  also  with  him."  Away  goes  his  boasted  strength— he 
denies  him.  Another  maid  comes  in  and  says,  "  This  fel- 
low was  also  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth."  With  an  oath  he  re- 
plied, "  I  do  not  know  the  man  !  "  Miserable  man  !  where 
are  all  your  resolutions  and  protestations?  You  boasted 
much,  John  said  nothing— now  he  is  true  and  you  are  false. 
A  third  affirms  that  he  is  one  of  them,  "  For  thy  speech  be- 
wrayeth  thee."  A  kinsman  of  Malchus  says  that  he  saw 
Peter  in  the  garden.  With  blasphemies  and  curses  he  denies 
him.  His  case  in  the  face  of  so  much  testimony  is  growing 
desperate,  and  he  would  enforce  their  belief  in  his  denial  by 


266  SERMONS. 

horrid  oaths.  Peter  is  angry  !  Why  angry  ?  Did  not  Jesus 
love  you  ? 

Peter  is  afraid  of  man.  "  Lord,  I  am  ready  to  go  with 
thee,  both  into  prison  and  to  death."  But  when  the  trial 
came,  he  loved  liberty  and  life  better  than  Jesus.  He  re- 
nounces Jesus.  Don't  fling  stones  at  him,  however.  Jesus 
has  been  presented  to  you,  sinner,  and  you  too  have  re- 
nounced Him  from  the  same  motive — afraid  of  man.  Peter 
denied  his  Saviour  to  save  his  life,  have  you  not  denied  Him 
to  win  a  moment's  applause  ?  We  must  love  Jesus  better 
than  life. 

III.  I  will  notice  briefly  Peter's  eonvicf ion  and  repentance. 
"The  cock  crew."  Peter  remembered  Christ's  prediction 
and  looked  towards  him.  Then  Christ  turned  and  looked 
upon  Peter.  "  Draw  nigh  to  God  and  he  will  draw  nigh  to 
you."  How  delicate  yet  how  mighty  a  reproof.  A  look! 
Christ  did  not  go  to  him,  He  did  not  wish  to  speak;  He  does 
all  by  a  look.     The  elements  of  that  look — 

"  Turn  and  look  upon  me,  Lord, 
And  break  this  heart  of  stone." 

Peter  went  out  and  wept  bitterly.  His  sin  was  of  the  grav- 
est character — it  was  a  denial  of  Christ  in  the  most  aggra- 
vated manner.  But  Christ  forgave  him.  This  was  night ;  the 
next  day  Christ  took  Peter's  sin  with  him  to  His  cross,  and 
atoned  for  it.  The  Lord  forgave  Peter  and  very  mercifully 
gave  him  an  opportunity  to  confess  his  love  to  Him.  He 
sent  His  first  message  after  His  resurrection  to  Peter. 

The  Jews  had  three  great  annual  festivals.  The  feast  of 
the  Tabernacles,  to  remind  the  children  of  Israel  that  their 
fathers  had  dwelt  in  tents  in  the  wilderness  ;  the  Passover,  in 
commemoration  of  their  deliverance  from  Egyptian  bondage  ; 
the  Pentecost,  in  commemoration  of  the  giving  of  the  law  on 
Mount  Sinai.     These  three  great  festivals  have  three  great 


PETER'S   DEFECTION.  267 

corresponding  events  in  the  new  dispensation.  Christ  was 
born  during  the  feast  of  the  Tabernacles  or  tents,  and  was  laid 
in  a  manger ;  He  was  crucified  during  the  Passover ;  and 
He  ascended  into  heaven,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  descended 
from  heaven,  during  the  Pentecost. 

The  Passover  was  instituted  commemorative  of  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  children  of  Israel  from  Egyptian  bondage,  and 
the  means  used  to  effect  such  deliverance ;  it  therefore  typed 
Redemption,  involving  the  emancipation  of  mankind  from 
the  bondage  of  sin.  Hence,  during  the  last  Passover  which 
meant  anything,  Jesus  the  Paschal  lamb  was  slain  on  Calvary 
for  the  salvation  of  the  race.  Fifty  days  after  the  institution 
of  the  Passover  the  old  dispensation  was  inaugurated  by  the 
giving  of  the  Law  upon  Mount  Sinai.  Fifty  days  precisely 
after  the  last  significant  Passover,  during  the  last  significant 
Pentecost^  the  new  dispensation  was  inaugurated  by  the 
baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  At  the  giving  of  the  Law  God 
came  down,  and  the  mount  quaked,  and  there  was  a  sound, 
a  flame,  and  a  voice ;  the  same  phenomena  characterized 
the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  for  God  came  down,  and 
there  was  a  sound,  a  flame,  and  a  voice.  The  Disciples  upon 
this  occasion,  numbering  one  hundred  and  twenty,  were 
all  in  one  room  waiting  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise.  It 
was  fifty  days  after  the  crucifixion,  ten  days  after  the  ascen- 
sion. While  they  waited  "suddenly  there  came  a  sound  from 
heaven  as  of  a  rushing  mighty  wind"  !  There  was  no  wind, 
but  "a  sound  as  of  a  rushing  mighty  wind  " — falling  from 
heaven  and  filling  the  chamber ;  and  the  fires  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  descended  upon  them  flashing  through  their  souls,  and 
blazed  upon  the  altars  of  their  hearts,  and  glowed  in  tongues 
of  flame  upon  their  brows — symbolizing  the  instrumental 
power  which  was  to  convert  the  world — the  tongue,  the 
voice  of  man  in  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel.  The  convert- 
ing and  sanctifying  fires  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  attended  by  a 


268  SERMONS. 

motionless  presence,  yet  roaring  like  the  whirlwinds  and 
fires  of  Horeb,  filled  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  till  all  their 
thankful  powers,  blended  in  a  burst  of  praise  and  a  shout  of 
glory,  which  rolled  along  every  alley  and  street  of  Jerusalem, 
was  heard  to  the  temple,  and  shook  the  air  over  Calvary, 
and  echoed  among  the  tombs  of  the  Prophets  and  the  sepul- 
chres of  the  Kings. 

It  was  a  Jewish  festival  and  there  were  people  in  Jerusalem 
from  "  every  nation  under  heaven."  They  heard  the  noise 
and  came  rushing  together.  In  compacted  thousands  they 
crowded  the  streets  and  squares  adjacent  to  and  around  the 
Pentecostal  chamber  of  the  first  heralds  of  the  cross.  There 
was  the  bloody  Jew,  the  selfish  priest,  the  myrmidons  of 
Pilate.  In  sight  was  Calvary — the  bloody  cross  probably 
still  standing — the  scenes  of  the  crucifixion  recent.  Now 
came  forward  Peter,  the  embodiment  of  the  loftiest  heroism 
and  the  sublimest  courage — not  the  flinching  coward  who 
quailed  before  a  servant-maid,  but  the  accuser  and  judge  of 
the  excited  mob,  the  champion  of  a  condemned  and  crucified 
impostor.  Unique  and  dauntless  with  a  heart  full  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  with  eyes  flashing  fire,  he  lifts  his  voice  like  the 
trump  of  doom,  and  hushes  into  silence  the  clamorous  mob 
by  the  announcement  of  what  was  to  them  his  unwelcome 
text — "Jesus  of  Nazareth" — "The  Messiah  of  the 
Prophets" — "The  Saviour  of  the  World."  Oh,  what 
a  change  religion  works  in  a  man ! 

His  was  no  silvery  harangue,  no  vapid  speech,  no  fustian 
flowers,  or  pedantic  bombast,  but  outright  he  charges  them 
with  murder,  and  preaches  faith  in  Jesus  as  their  only  hope. 
Stern,  sententious,  terrible,  he  drove  home  the  truth.  His 
was  no  sharp  and  polished  sword,  but  the  ponderous  battle- 
axe,  which  hewed  in  pieces  their  prejudices,  brought  them 
bowed  with  conviction,  crying,  "  Men  and  brethren,  what 
shall  we  do  ?  "     "  Repent,  and  be  baptized,  every  one  of  you. 


PETER'S  DEFECTION.  269 

in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ"  From  this  time  ever  after- 
wards he  exhibited  an  intrepidity  and  stability  of  character, 
unlike  the  Peter  before  his  conversion.  According  to  tra- 
dition he  was  crucified  when  an  old  man,  near  Rome,  by  the 
order  of  Nero,  with  his  head  down  according  to  his  own  re- 
quest. His  body  is  now  said  to  rest  in  a  crypt  of  marble 
beneath  the  largest  cathedral  of  earth,  and  his  soul  is  high 
in  heaven  with  his  crucified  but  now  risen  Master.  Peter 
backslid,  was  reclaimed,  but  was  finally  saved. 


SERMON   XX. 

MAGNITUDE    OF    THE    DIVINE    COUNSEL'S    AND    WORK. 
"  Great  in  counsel,  and  mighty  in  work." — Jer.  xxxiL  19. 

THE  prophet  is  exhibiting  God  as  the  Governor  and 
Rewarder  of  men,  the  Maker  and  Ruler  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  and  the  text  appears  to  be  the  expression  of  a  senti- 
ment naturally  enkindled  in  his  mind — "  Great  in  counsel, 
and  mighty  in  work."  God's  counsels  are  His  purposes, 
designs,  and  decrees — what  He  wills.  Many  of  the  counsels 
of  God  are  apparent,  others  are  mysterious.  God  has  secret 
counsels  in  nature,  providence,  and  religion.  They  are 
God's  secrets,  because,  says  Mr.  Watson :  1st.  He  only 
knows  them.  2d.  He  has  not  revealed  them.  3d.  He  has 
the  right  of  property  of  them.  "  The  secret  things,"  says 
Moses,  "  belong  unto  the  Lord  our  God  :  but  those  things 
which  are  revealed  belong  unto  us  and  to  our  children  for- 
ever, that  we  may  do  all  the  words  of  this  law." 

"  Great  in  counsel  :" — 

I.  Because  they  are  supreme — supremus,  supra,  above — 
above  all  angelic,  diabolical,  and  demoniacal  counsels.  No 
power  in  heaven,  earth,  or  hell  can  disannul  or  render  them 
void.  "  For  the  Lord  of  hosts  hath  purposed,  who  will  dis- 
annul it?"  (Is.  xiv.  27.)  "As  I  have  purposed,  so  shall 
it  stand."  (Is.  xiv.  24.)  Again,  "  There  is  no  wisdom,  nor 
understanding,  nor  counsel  against  the  Lord."  "  My  counsels 
shall  stand,  and  I  will  do  all  my  pleasure."  (Is.  xlvi.  20.) 
God  s  counsels  are  supreme  in  nature.     Every  material  thing 


DIVINE   COUNSELS   AND   WORK.  2/1 

exists,  moves,  and  changes,  only  to  carry  out  God's  designs 
and  purposes.  For  this  the  sun  shines,  the  moon  waxes  and 
wanes,  the  planets  revolve.  The  storm  spreads  its  wings 
and  flies  howling  along  the  face  of  the  sky,  or  folds  them  in 
its  mysteiious  caverns  according  to  the  Divine  decree.  The 
lurid  lightnings  slumber  in  the  bosom  of  the  latent  storms, 
or  stalk  in  living  thunders  through  the  firmament  as  God 
directs.  "  Fire  and  hail,  snow  and  vapor,  and  stormy  winds 
1  fulfil '  his  word,"  says  the  Psalmist.  Who  ever  heard  of 
a  rebel  element  in  nature  ?  God's  counsels  are  supreme 
amongst  growing  herbs,  ripening  fruits,  running  waters,  and 
moving  worlds.  There  is  a  tendency  to  throw  God  out  of 
nature.  God  is  the  first  and  final  cause,  the  absolute  and 
universal  cause,  into  which  all  the  phenomena  of  the  ma- 
terial universe  ultimate. 

Even  the  casual  events  of  earth  and  time  crowd  into  one 
procession,  and  march  in  unbroken  columns  at  the  Divine 
bidding,  and  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  Divine  purposes. 
Fortune's  "  freaks,"  so-called,  are  under  the  control  of  God  ; 
and  every  revolution  of  its  uncertain  wheel  is  under  the 
kindled  eye  of  Him  whose  counsels  are  sovereign.  There 
never  was  such  a  thing,  there  is  no  such  thing,  there  never 
will  be  such  a  thing,  as  absolute  accident  in  the  universe  of 
God.  Many  things  occur  which  God  does  not  order,  and 
which  God  from  His  nature  would  prefer  would  not  occur, 
but  could  not  prevent  their  occurrence  without  destroying 
the  moral  agency  of  the  creatures  whom  He  made,  therefore 
rendering  them  incapable  of  holiness  in  order  to  prevent 
them  from  being  wicked  ;  but  one  thing  is  certain,  God  will 
permit  nothing  to  occur,  unless  under  the  sovereignty  of 
His  government  he  can  derive  an  equal  or  greater  amount 
of  glory  from  it  than  if  it  had  not  occurred  at  alL  God's 
glory  is  not  selfish  but  benevolent. 

The  counsels  of  God  comprehend  all  the  vast  ranges  of 


272  SERMONS. 

material  and  immaterial  being.  In  the  language  of  inspira- 
tion :  "  It  is  high  as  heaven  ....  and  deeper  than  hell." 
Angels,  though  possibly  able  to  understand  at  a  glance  the 
profoundest  counsellings  of  the  human  mind,  yet  submit  with 
J9y  to  the  counsels  of  Jehovah.  "  He  maketh  his  angels 
spirits  and  his  ministers  a  flaming  fire."  Yet,  surpassingly 
astonishing  !  devils  and  demons  excepted,  man  presents  the 
strange  anomaly,  as  far  as  we  know,  of  a  created  being  try- 
ing to  circumvent  the  counsels  of  an  infinite  mind — actually 
defying  God.  Ungrateful  and  veritable  madman  !  he,  the 
greatest  beneficiary  of  the  Divine  goodness  probably  in  the 
universe,  would  neutralize  the  power,  and  disappoint  the 
agencies  employed  for  his  own  reclamation  and  felicity.  Man, 
whose  counsels  are  circumscribed  by  the  small  area  of  his 
acquaintance  and  the  brevity  of  his  life,  and  is  powerless 
himself  to  execute  any  resolves  he  might  make,  to  endeavor 
to  vie  with,  much  less  try  to  defeat  the  counsels  of  God,  is 
the  most  reckless  insanity,  or  the  most  horrid  presumption. 

The  sinner  may  endeavor  to  defeat  God's  counsels,  but 
they  will  stand.  "They  intended  evil  :  .  .  .  they  imagined 
a  mischievous  device,  which  they  are  not  able  to  perform.*'' 
(Ps.  xxi.  ii.)  "The  wicked  is  snared  in  the  work  of  his 
own  hands."  (Ps.  viii.  6.)  "  A  man's  heart  deviseth  his  way  : 
but  the  Lord  directeth  his  steps."  (Prov.  xvi.)  "  The  prepa- 
ration of  the  heart  in  man  and  the  answer  of  the  tongue  is 
from  the  Lord."  "The  way  of  man  is  not  in  himself."  (Jer. 
x.  23.)  The  brethren  of  Joseph  sold  him  to  prevent  the 
fulfilment  of  his  dream,  but  God  accomplished  several  things 
by  this  act  of  His  providence.  1st.  He  honored  Joseph.  2d. 
He  provided  for  Jacob  during  famine.  3d.  He  disciplined 
the  Israelites  by  suffering.  4th.  Isolated  them  from  the  idol- 
atrous Egyptians  by  slavery.  5th.  Put  them  in  a  condition 
to  make  them  think  of  Him  as  their  only  help.  6th.  Put 
them  in  a  condition  to  reveal  Himself  most  favorably  to  them. 


DIVINE   COUNSELS  AND    WORK.  273 

Life  and  death  are  placed  before  every  man  as  alter- 
natives. The  sinner  may  accept  life  or  reject  it  as  he 
chooses.  He  may  accept  it  to-day  and  throw  it  away  to- 
morrow. All  this  is  within  the  purlieu  of  moral  agency.  It  is 
a  personal  matter.  But  the  sinner  as  a  being  whose  actions 
affect  othei  men,  and  God's  administrations  with  respect  to 
other  men,  is  powerless.  God  has  an  especial  administra- 
tion with  other  men.  God  does  not  decree  what  you  suffer, 
but  other  men  cannot  afflict  suffering  unless  God  can  press 
the  act  into  His  service.  God  has  a  thousand  ways  of  prevent- 
ing it,  without  destroying  your  moral  agency.  He  can  inspire 
fear  or  dread,  arouse  the  conscience,  present  other  motives,  or 
make  you  sick.  God  will  hold  you  accountable,  however,  for 
all  your  intentions.  God  never  forces  men's  wills  upon  moral 
questions  ;  He  would  rule  all  holiness  out  of  the  world,  if  He 
were  to  do  it.  If  this  much  is  not  implied  in  government, 
His  government  is  a  farce — strength  would  win  all  battles, 
and  swiftness  all  races.  There  is  a  time  coming  when  you 
shall  acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  God's  counsels — "  I 
have  spoken  it,  I  also  will  bring  it  to  pass ;  I  have  purposed 
it,  I  will  also  do  it." 

II.  Because  God's  counsels  are  unchangeable.  God  is  self- 
existent,  or  there  is  no  God.  Self-existence  is  perfect  exis- 
tence ;  perfect  existence  cannot  be  added  to  or  subtracted 
from,  for  there  is  no  change  in  the  absence  of  addition  or 
subtraction  ;  then  God  is  essentially  unchangeable,  therefore 
Eternal.  God's  counsels  are  emanations  of  His  own  nature. 
If  His  nature  is  unchangeable  His  counsels  are.  Hear  the 
Scriptures:  "The  counsels  of  the  Lord  standeth  forever." 
(Ps.  xxxiii.)  "  There  are  many  devices  in  a  man's  heart ;  nev- 
ertheless the  counsel  of  the  Lord,  that  shall  stand."  (Pro v. 
xix.  21.)  "I  have  spoken  it,  I  have  purposed  it,  and  will 
not  repent,  neither  will  I  turn  back  from  it."     (Jer.  iv.  28.) 

God's  infinite  knowledge  forbids  that  He  shall  form  a  do 
12* 


274  SERMONS. 

cree  or  counsel  without  being  perfectly  acquainted  with  all 
the  facts  in  the  case.  Therefore  a  reason  could  never  arise 
throughout  all  eternity  for  the  changing  of  the  decree  which 
God  did  not  know  before.  His  counsels  are  founded  in 
the  reality  of  the  existence  and  relations  of  things,  which 
God  knew  from  all  eternity,  therefore  necessarily  as  eternal 
and  unchangeable  as  truth  itself.  "  Thy  counsels  of  old  are 
faithfulness  and  truth."  And  truth  from  its  very  nature 
could  not  possibly  change  without  losing  its  entire  character 
as  truth,  therefore  its  existence.  The  existence,  relation, 
and  character  of  facts  upon  which  truth  is  founded  may 
change,  so  that  the  thing  which  was  the  truth  yesterday 
may  not  be  the  truth  to-day  ;  yet  truth,  the  essence  of  which 
consists  in  being  the  exact  representation  of  facts  as  they 
exist,  has  in  the  abstract  remained  the  same  eternal  and 
unchangeable  principle.  As  it  is  with  truth  so  it  is  with  the 
counsels  of  God.  And  as  the  existence,  relation,  and  char- 
acter of  facts  may  change  without  affecting  the  character  of 
truth,  so  that  the  truth  to-day  with  relation  to  them  may  not, 
with  relation  to  them,  be  the  truth  of  yesterday,  so  it  is  with 
the  counsels  of  God. 

God  has  decreed  that  all  the  righteous  shall  be  saved.  He 
has  decreed  that  all  the  wicked  shall  be  damned.  These  de- 
crees are  found  among  the  immutable  decrees  of  God.  ■  If  a 
man  wills  to  be  righteous  he  will  be  saved  according  to  the 
immutable  decree  of  God  ;  if  he  wills  to  be  wicked  he  will 
be  damned  according  to  the  immutable  decree  of  God.  We 
have  illustrations  of  the  immutability  of  the  Divine  counsels, 
in  the  regularity  and  uniformity  of  the  laws  of  nature  ;  in  the 
fulfilled  promises  of  His  word  ;  in  the  unalterable  principles, 
conditions,  and  effects  of  the  plan  of  salvation  ;  in  the  uni- 
versal connection  between  sin  and  misery  ;  in  the  univer- 
sal connection  between  Religion  and  happiness  ;  in  the  uni- 
versal and  uniform  action  of  the  conscience  with  reference  to 


DIVINE   COUNSELS   AND    WORK.  275 

moral  actions.  What  an  assurance  for  personal  salvation 
we  have  in  the  unchangeability  of  God's  counsels  !  Hear 
Paul :  •'  God,  willing  more  abundantly  to  show  unto  the  heirs 
of  promise  the  immutability  of  his  counsel,  confirmed  it  by 
an  oath  ;  that  by  two  immutable  things,  in  which  it  was  im- 
possible for  God  to  lie,  we  might  have  a  strong  consolation, 
who  have  fled  for  refuge  to  lay  hold  on  the  hope  set  before 
us." 

III.  Because  God's  counsels,  by  which  we  understand  His 
decrees,  purposes,  and  designs,  are  emanations  of  His  intel- 
lige?ice.  Intelligence  is  necessary  to  the  constitution  of 
spirit.  At  least,  in  its  application  to  God  there  is  no  con- 
troversy. Intelligence  is  an  essential  quality  inhering  into 
the  unity  of  the  Divine  existence.  The  supposition  that  God 
is  not  intelligent  is  not  only  wholly  unwarrantable  and  absurd, 
but  profane  and  monstrous.  God  is  essentially  intelligent. 
Now,  intelligence  in  the  absence  of  design  or  purpose,  which 
is  all  we  mean  by  counsel,  is  preposterous.  If  intelligence 
is  essential  to  the  nature  of  God,  and  He  is  infinite,  His  in- 
telligence must  be  infinite  ;  for  if  we  accommodate  the  idea  of 
God's  totality  to  our  poor  understandings  as  being  constitu- 
ted of  parts,  no  aggregation  of  finite  parts  can  make  an 
infinite  whole.  If  the  whole  is  infinite,  the  parts  or  qualities 
of  the  whole  must  be  infinite  too.  And  if  there  is  no  intelli- 
gence in  the  absence  of  counsel,  then  the.  counsels  of  God 
are  as  infinite  as  Himself.  If  God  is  great,  and  great  He 
must  be  if  infinite,  His  counsels  must  have  an  equal  great- 
ness. We  might  imbibe  the  spirit  of  the  prophet,  and 
exclaim  :  "Great  in  counsel !  " 

But  we  have  no  practical  idea  of  God's  counsels  in  the! 
absence  of  their  exhibitions.  And  God  cannot  exhibit  them,, 
unless  He  has  power  equal  to  His  purposes,  and  equal  to 
His  designs.  Hence  the  prophet  exclaims :  "  Great  in 
counsel,  and  mighty  in  work."     God's  counsels  are  equal  to 


276  SERMONS. 

Himself,  and  equal  to  conceive,  decide,  and  purpose  any 
thing.  His  power  is  equal  to  Himself,  equal  to  His  counsels, 
and  able  to  execute  His  conceptions,  decisions,  and  purposes. 
Infinite  in  counsel,  and  infinite  in  work.  With  relation  to 
the  two  qualities  existing  essentially  in  God,  and  taught  by 
implication  in  the  text,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  difficulty 
throughout  the  length,  breadth,  height,  and  depth  of  universal 
being — yea,  in  eternity  in  its  loftiest  and  most  comprehensive 
signification. 

"  Mighty  in  work."  The  sacred  writers  love  to  dwell  on 
the  Omnipotence  of  God,  as  exhibited  in  His  works.  1st. 
They  present  as  evidence  of  God's  Omnipotence,  the  act  of 
creation.  "  He  hath  made  the  earth  by  his  power,  he  hath 
established  the  world  by  his  wisdom,  and  hath  stretched  out 
the  heavens  by  his  discretion.''  "I  have  made  the  earth, 
the  man,  and  the  beasts  that  are  upon  the  ground,  by  my 
great  power  and  by  my  outstretched  arm,  and  have  given  it 
unto  whom  it  seemed  meet  unto  me."  "  By  the  word  of  the 
Lord  were  the  heavens  made;  and  all  the  host  of  them  by 
the  breath  of  his  mouth."  "  He  commanded,  and  they  were 
created."  To  throw  created  matter  into  forms,  and  fashion 
it  into  worlds,  flowers,  and  fruit,  and  make  many  of  its  con- 
formations, vegetable,  animal,  and  lapidarious,  self-multiply- 
ing and  self-productive,  involves  a  power  beyond  our  com- 
prehension ;  but  when  there  was  with  reference  to  material 
things  an  unimaginative  nothingness,  to  make  worlds,  suns, 
and  galaxies,  many  of  which,  and  probably  all,  teeming  and 
peopled  with  life,  evinces  an  immensity  of  power  as  incom- 
prehensible as  God,  as  incomprehensible  as  nothing  itself. 

2.  They  present  the  vastness,  number,  and  variety  of 
created  things  as  evidences  of  His  power.  Hear  the  Scrip- 
tures :  "  He  spreadeth  out  the  heavens,  and  treadeth  upon 
the  waves  of  the  sea :  he  maketh  Arcturus,  Orion,  and 
Pleiades,  and  the  chambers  of  the  South:    he  doeth  great 


DIVINE   COUNSELS   AND   WORK.  277 

things  past  finding  out,  yea  and  wonders  without  number." 
"  He  stretcheth  out  the  North  over  the  empty  place,  and 
hangeth  the  earth  upon  nothing."  "  He  bindeth  up  the 
waters  in  his  thick  clouds,  and  the  cloud  is  not  rent  under 
them ;  he  hath  compassed  the  waters  with  bounds  until  the 
day  and  night  come  to  an  end." 

How  immense  the  magnitude  of  creation's  works.  When 
we  walk  amid  the  mountains  and  cliffs  of  our  country  we  feel 
so  strangely  small.  But  let  us  go  to  the  ranges  and  spurs 
of  the  Sierra  Madra,  or  the  Mexican  Andes,  and  gaze  upon 
Popocatapetl,  their  grim  old  king,  as  he  lifts  his  cold,  blue, 
and  dreary  dome,  helmeted  with  ice,  and  yawning  with  a 
savage  and  hideous  crater  eighteen  thousand  and  seven  hun- 
dred feet  high,  upon  whose  lofty  top  winter  finds  an  eternal 
eyrie  though  in  the  tropics — a  gray  and  glittering  dome 
propped  upon  beetling  columns  of  porphyry,  and  naked  cliffs 
three  thousand  feet  high,  rent  with  gorges  down  which  cata- 
racts plunge,  and  which  once  rocked  and  bellowed  while  con- 
tinents shook.  Or,  let  us  go  to  Cotopaxi  and  gaze  upon  its 
mysterious  cone,  piercing  the  clouds,  smoking  like  a  furnace, 
as  it  rises  nineteen  thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 
Or,  let  us  go  to  that  higher  peak,  Chimborazo,  which  rises 
twenty-two  thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and 
towers  away  above  clouds,  and  storms,  and  heats,  and  dares 
to  wear  his  frosty  crown  in  the  sun's  *very  eye,  and  near  the 
world's  equator.  Or,  let  us  go  to  Aconcagua,  the  monarch 
of  the  Western  continent,  rising  above  the  sea  to  the  height 
of  twenty-three  thousand  one  hundred  feet,  which  not  only 
towers  above  the  clouds,  but  which  really  soars  away  beyond 
all  his  Andean  compeers,  and  islands  his  glacial  dome  in 
the  calm  deep  blue  of  the  upper  sky.  Or,  let  us  go  to  the 
Eastern  continent,  to  the  Himalayas,  whose  inexplorable  and 
unscalable  tops  prop  up  the  very  heavens— in  comparison 
with  one  or  all,  we  diminish  to  a  point. 


2^8  SERMONS. 

But  were  our  minds  and  visions  so  enlarged  as  to  take 
in  the  earth,  nearly  eight  thousand  miles  in  diameter,  or 
the  immense  circumference  of  Jupiter,  fourteen  hundred 
times  larger  than  this  earth  ;  or  looking  up  at  noon,  could 
we  comprehend  that  vast  body  eight  hundred  and  eighty- 
nine  thousand  miles  in  diameter,  and  fourteen  hundred 
thousand  times  larger  than  *  this  earth,  hung  propless  and 
blazing  in  space  over  our  heads,  mountains  would  sink 
to  atoms,  continents  to  islets,  and  we  to  nothing.  The 
number  of  created  things  is  equally  astounding.  Count 
the  sands  of  Sahara ;  the  corals  in  the  sea ;  the  drops  of  the 
ocean  ;  the  grass  upon  the  plains ;  the  trees  of  the  forest ; 
the  countless  millions  of  living  creatures  which  throng  every 
drop  of  water,  and  every  particle  of  air,  and  luxuriate  in  every 
ripe  and  luscious  berry ;  or  those  of  more  ponderous  frame 
which  plow  the  deep,  and  rove  the  forests ;  or  that  highest 
type  of  animal  existence  who  tenants  every  valley,  and 
whose  lordly  bearing  proclaims  him  God-descended.  Na- 
ture is  crowded,  and  numbers  are  confounded.  Every  unit 
of  this  vast  calculation  was  made,  and  is  now  held  in  being 
by  the  power  of  God. 

In  the  dynamics  of  volcanoes  are  furnished  some  tremen- 
dous exhibitions  of  power.  Vesuvius  is  more  than  three 
thousand  feet  high,  yet  it  has  thrown  scoria  into  the  air  four 
thousand  feet  above  its  summit.  Cotopaxi  is  nineteen  thou- 
sand feet  high,  yet  it  has  thrown  matter  six  thousand  feet 
above  its  summit ;  and  once  it  threw  a  stone  one  hundred 
and  nine  cubic  yards  in  size,  nine  miles.  From  a  volcano 
in  Iceland,  in  1873,  two  streams  of  lava  flowed  in  opposite 
directions,  one  fifty  miles  long  and  twelve  miles  broad ;  and 
the  other  forty  miles  long  and  seven  miles  broad,  one  hun- 
dred feet  deep,  and  sometimes  six  hundred  feet. 

To  suppose  the  chimney  of  a  volcano  to  descend  only  as 
far  below  the  sea's  level  as  it  ascends  above  it,  it  would 


DIVINE   COUNSELS   AND    WORK.  279 

require  in  Cotopaxi  the  force  of  fourteen  hundred  and  ninety- 
two  atmospheres  exerted  upon  the  lava  to  make  it  simply 
pour  over  the  crater,  with  an  initial  velocity  of  eleven  hun- 
dred and  four  feet  per  second.  And  other  volcanoes  in  the 
same  proportion.  If  the  chimneys  extend  lower,  which  they 
do  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  much  greater  force  is  required — - 
especially  if  the  lava  should  be  ejected  into  the  air.  Then 
how  great  the  force  which  was  sufficient  to  throw  the  peaks 
of  Teneriffe  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea  thirteen  thousand 
feet  above  its  level ;  or  the  island  of  Hawaii,  containing  four 
thousand  square  miles,  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea  eighteen 
thousand  feet  above  its  level.  But  what  is  all  this  to  com- 
pare with  the  tremendous  power  which  drives  the  earth 
along  its  orbit  at  the  rate  of  sixty-eight  thousand  miles  an 
hour  ? 

To  go  back  beyond  the  six  creative  days,  to  that  dateless 
beginning,  when  God  only  existed,  and  when  by  an  incom- 
prehensible evolution  out  of  Himself,  and  from  Himself,  by 
His  all-powerful  Word,  He  created  and  originated  "  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,"  so  far  transcends  all  finite  power, 
that  appalled  we  must  turn  the  other  way,  or  go  mad.  To 
approach  the  edge  of  the  revealed,  and  peer  over  into  that 
bottomless  abysm,  instinct  with  eternal  God,  and  atomless, 
and  voiceless,  in  our  consciousness  we  shrink  into  mere  sen- 
sitive specks,  quivering  with  horror  as  if  blown  upon  the 
stage  of  existence  by  the  breath  of  the  Almighty  without 
volition  or  notice  of  His  own  ;  and  as  if  expecting  to  be 
caught  up  the  next  moment  in  the  blast  and  whirlwind  of 
His  creative  Word,  and  dashed  into  nothingness.  Oh,  the 
throes  of  the  Divine  Power  which  lifted  out  of  an  apparent 
nihilism  the  materials  to  forge  worlds  and  suns  to  hang  in 
burning  zones  of  awful  beauty  upon  the  neck  of  eternity, 
and  around  whose  dread  circumference  possibly  an  angel 
could  not  fly  during  the  everlasting  ages  which  make  God's 


280  SERMONS. 

life-time — eternal  duration  !  Oh,  my  little  soul  !  get  away 
from  the  first  verse  of  the  genesis  of  the  universe,  as 
recorded  in  this  Book  ;  and  come  to  the  great  formless  earth, 
wrapped  in  roaring  waters,  under  darkness,  and  see  the  great 
brooding  Spirit  of  God,  and  the  flash  of  cosmical  light,  and 
the  emergence  and  development  of  the  world  in  grand 
series  ;  till  the  hour  that  the  dry  land  appeared,  and  the 
waters  raged  in  chains,  and  the  grass  grew,  and  the  flowers 
bloomed,  and  the  trees  waved,  and  the  birds  sung,  and  the 
lions  roared,  and  the  sun  shone,  and  man  lived,  moved,  and 
thought  under  the  benediction  and  smile  of  God,  and  the 
world's  Sabbath  set  in  and  God  rested  from  His  labors. 

IV.  They  present  the  ease  with  which  God  sustains ,  orders, 
and  controls  all  His  works  as  illustrative  of  His  poiver. 
He  marks  the  shore  of  the  ocean  and  saith  :  "  Hitherto 
shalt  thou  come  and  no  farther,  and  here  shall  thy  proud 
waves  be  stayed."  Oceans,  enamoured  of  the  celestial  god- 
dess of  the  night,  may  raise  their  tidal  arms  to  her  embrace, 
and  try  to  follow  her  around  the  world  ;  but  cities  and  states 
feel  secure,  for  God  has  said,  "  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come 
and  no  farther."  In  the  day  of  the  storm  they  grow  mad, 
and  with  terrible  and  commingled  howls  of  horror,  gather 
up  their  plunging  surges  and  dash  them  on  the  shore,  but 
God  has  said,  "  Here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed." 
"  He  hath  measured  the  waters  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand, 
and  meted  out  heaven  with  the  span,  comprehended  the 
dust  of  the  earth  in  a  measure,  and  weighed  the  mountains 
in  scales,  and  the  hills  in  a  balance."  These  descriptions 
are  often  terrible  :  "  The  pillars  of  the  heaven  tremble  and 
are  astonished  at  his  reproof,  he  divideth  the  sea  with  his 
power."  When  the  defenceless  thousands  of  Israel — old 
men  and  maidens,  women  and  children — were  pressed  in 
the  rear  by  the  armed  hosts  of  Pharaoh,  and  flanked  by 
mountains  and  confronted  by  the  sea,  the  descending  sword 


DIVINE   COUNSELS   AND   WORK.  28 1 

of  Omnipotence  cleft  the  waters,  and  His  breath  posited 
them  in  gleaming  walls  on  both  sides,  and  they  went  through 
dry  shod.  When  Israel  was  saved,  and  the  pursuing  enemy 
w|is  marching  along  the  floors  of  the  sea,  paved  with 
zoophitic  beds,  with  which  the  Gulf  of  Suea  abounds,  the 
power  of  God  was  withdrawn,  and  the  two  walls,  rushing 
together  with  the  crashing  roar  of  a  thousand  hurricanes, 
buried  them  forever.  "  He  divide th  the  sea  with  his 
power." 

Again :  "  He  toucheth  the  mountains  and  they  smoke." 
How  true  :  when  the  foot  of  Jehovah  descending  touched 
the  ragged  cliffs  of  Sinai's  granite  top,  the  mountain  instantly 
caught  fire,  and  smoke  and  flames,  light  and  darkness,  blend- 
ing in  awful  grandeur,  rose  to  the  sky.  "  He  removeth  the 
mountains  and  they  know  it  not ;  he  overturneth  them  in 
his  anger,  he  shaketh  the  earth  out  of  his  place,  and  the 
pillars  thereof  tremble  ;  he  commandeth  the  sun  and  it 
riseth  not,  and  sealeth  up  the  stars."  At  the  walking  of  the 
footsteps  of  the  Divine  Power,  giant  earthquakes  shiver 
through  the  earth,  and  jar  its  very  foundations — mountains 
and  hills  fly  howling  into  yawning  abysms,  and  valleys 
upheaving  kiss  the  clouds.  At  God's  bidding  the  sun  comes 
forth  from  his  chamber  rejoicing,  with  his  bride  gorgeous 
Day  leaning  upon  his  arm,  in  their  daily  promenade  from 
oriental  palace  to  hesperian  garden,  from  the  gates  of  morn 
to  the  gates  of  eve.  With  His  own  Almighty  Hand,  He 
conducts  the  royal  pair  down  the  west,  behind  the  mountain- 
tops,  and  beckons  out  the  constellations  to  laugh,  and  shine, 
and  to  make  music  with  their  twinkling  feet  on  heaven's 
high  empyrean. 

So  supreme  His  power,  "  He  bringeth  princes  to  noth- 
ing," "  He  teareth  down  one  and  setteth  up  another  ;  "  and 
impresses  into  His  service  angels,  Satan,  man,  sin,  hell, 
death,  and  the  grave,  with  all  their  hosts,  influences,  agen- 


282  SERMONS. 

cies,  and  efforts,  to  carry  on  His  work.  So  tremendous  His 
power,  with  one  sweep  of  His  arm,  He  cleared  heaven  of 
rebels,  and  astounded  the  universe  with  the  fall  of  the  apos- 
tate angels. 

Habakkuk,  however,  treats  of  the  Divine  power  in  a  more 
interesting  direction  to  us.  He  represents  God  clothed  with 
light,  and  filling  the  heavens  with  His  glory,  as  coming  from 
Teman,  with  horns  emblematical  of  power  coming  out  of 
His  hand,  heralded  by  pestilence  and  walking  in  fire.  Says 
the  prophet  :  "  He  stood  and  measured  the  earth,  and  drove 
asunder  the  nations  :  and  the  everlasting  mountains  were 
scattered,  the  perpetual  hills  did  bow."  ''The  overflowing 
of  the  water  passed  by  :  the  deep  uttered  his  voice,  and  lifted 
up  his  hands  on  high.  The  sun  and  moon  stood  still  in  their 
habitation  :  at  the  light  of  thine  arrows  they  went,  and  at 
the  shining  of  thy  glittering  spear."  "Thou  didst  march 
through  the  land  in  indignation,  thou  didst  thresh  the  heathen 
in  anger."  "  Thou  didst  walk  through  the  sea  with  thine 
horses,  through  the  heap  of  great  waters."  Why  such  terri- 
ble exhibitions  of  Divine  power  ?  The  prophet  answers  : 
"Thou  wentest  forth  for  the  salvation  of  thy  people."  The 
whole  power  of  God  so  mightily  illustrated  in  nature  exerted 
for  the  salvation  of  His  people.  But  the  power  exerted  by 
God  to  save  His  people  is  not  the  mere  executive  power  of 
the  Almighty  we  call  Omnipotence,  which  made  worlds  and 
upholds  them.  Such  power  has  only  been  exerted  in  a  col- 
lateral sense  to  promote  such  an  object,  but  it  has  been 
exerted  for  such  a  purpose  collaterally,  and  in  its  Almighti- 
ness  is  the  measure  of  that  mental  and  moral  potentiality 
whose  dynamic  manifestations  have  been,  and  still  are,  so 
fully  and  sublimely  seen  in  the  splendid  scheme  and  the 
purposes  of  the  plan  of  human  salvation. 

In  the  search  after  cause,  it  is  found  in  mind — in  that 
essential   characteristic   form   of  mind   we   call  power.     In 


DIVINE   COUNSELS   AND    WORK.  283 

tracing  the  chain  of  cause  and  effect  as  it  glitters  in  physics 
and  metaphysics,  in  nature  and  supernature,  we  find  its  first 
link,  the  first  cause,  in  the  mind  of  God,  in  that  essential 
characteristic  form  of  the  Divine  mind  we  call  power.  In 
God  alone  is  executive  ability  found  equal  to  the  philosophi- 
cal condition  of  that  formal  essence  of  mind  designated  by 
the  word  power.  God  is  power — this  is  abstract  power  : 
God  makes  worlds,  and  saves  his  people — this  is  concrete 
power.  God  is  power — this  is  subjective  power  :  God  makes 
worlds,  and  saves  His  people — this  is  objective  power.  And 
as  the  unity  of  the  Divine  essence  is  such  that  no  one  part 
of  God  can  be  engaged  in  one  thing  and  other  parts  quies- 
cent or  non-engaged — so  Salvation  is  the  infinite  power  of 
God  in  the  concrete,  the  infinite  objective  power  of  God  : 
"  For  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  for  it  is  the 
power  of  God." 

But  I  told  you,  in  the  search  after  cause  it  is  found  in 
mind — in  that  essential  characteristic  form  of  mind  we  call 
power.  This  is  general  principle  in  an  especial  application  ; 
so  in  keeping  with  the  general  principle,  and  in  another  ap- 
plication of  it,  in  tracing  the  chain  of  human  work  and  human 
action,  we  find  its  first  link,  the  first  cause,  in  the  mind  of 
man,  in  that  essential  characteristic  form  of  the  human  mind 
we  call  power.  And  as  the  whole  power  of  God  has  become 
objective,  and  is  exerted  in  the  concrete  for  man's  salvation, 
it  is  only  become  objective  and  concrete  in  this  form  upon 
the  condition  that  the  whole  power  of  man  becomes  objec- 
tive and  concrete  in  \he  form  of  faith.  Hence,  "  For  I  am 
not  ashamed  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  for  it  is  the  power  of 
God  unto  every  one  that  believeth."  The  gospel  is  the  ob- 
jective power  of  God  with  reference  to  human  salvation  ; 
faith  is  the  objective  power  of  man  with  reference  to  God; 
the  gospel  is  the  concrete  power  of  God  with  reference  to 
human  salvation  ;  faith  is  the  concrete  power  of  man  with 


284  SERMONS. 

reference  to  God.  God's  power  is  objective  and  concrete, 
upon  the  condition  that  man's  power  is  the  same.  It  is  the 
co-working  of  two  causes — the  co-working  of  two  powers, 
the  one  Divine,  the  other  human — the  powers  in  both  being 
the  ultimate  causes  in  both  in  the  abstract.  God  saves  me, 
and  I  save  myself.  This  is  the  philosophy  of  Redemption, 
and  take  this  idea  out  of  the  text  and  it  is  nonsense,  and  any 
exposition  of  the  text  which  ignores  this  idea  is  also  non- 
sense. Here  we  have  infinite  power  put  forth  upon  the  con- 
dition that  the  power  of  the  creature  is  also  put  forth — ■ 
glorifying  the  agent  of  the  exercise  of  the  first  power,  and 
saving  the  agent  of  the  exercise  of  the  last  power. 

Both  agents  exercise  all  their  power  respectively,  but  God's 
power  is  infinite.  Salvation  involves  infinite  difficulties  : 
Infinite  power  solves  them  and  perfects  the  scheme.  Sal- 
vation in  the  abstract  is  a  system  of  powerless  principles  : 
Infinite  power  enthrones  itself  in  the  system,  and  arms  every 
principle  with  Omnipotence.  Salvation's  conquests  must  be 
among  its  adversaries  :  Infinite  power  attends  it.  Salvation 
is  in  the  land  of  its  enemies  :  Infinite  power  defends  it 
Salvation  from  the  guilt  of  sin,  the  power  of  sin,  the  fetters  of 
sin,  the  bondage  of  sin,  the  darkness  of  sin,  the  death  of  sin, 
the  penalty  of  sin — imparting  purity,  life,  light,  liberty,  hap- 
piness, and  heaven — are  but  so  many  manifestations  of  the 
Divine  power  working  within  the  well-defined  boundaries  of 
a  completed  scheme.  "Great  in  counsel,  and  mighty  in 
work."  His  power  testifies  to  the  greatness  of  His  counsels, 
and  His  works  testify  to  the  mightiness  of  His  power.  Faith, 
man's  power,  properly  exercised  would  bring  into  requisi- 
tion the  full  power  of  God  to  hasten  the  conquest  of  the 

world. 


SERMON  XXI. 

THE    FUTURE    AND     ETERNAL     PUNISHMEN1    OF    THE    WICKED 
(DISCOURSE    I.). 

"  These  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment;  but  the  righteous 
into  life  eternal." — Matt.  xxv.  46. 

THERE  is  a  state  of  future  rewards  for  the  righteous, 
therefore  there  is  a  state  of  future  punishment  for  the 
wicked.  All  principles  of  quality,  character,  and  state,  exist 
in  dualities — that  is,  exist  in  twos,  each  opposed  to  the  other 
in  its  nature.  These  principles  are  correlative — that  is,  each 
individually,  and  reciprocally,  is  dependent  for  its  existence 
upon  the  existence  of  the  other.  It  is  illustrated  in  rest  and 
motion,  beauty  and  ugliness,  proportion  and  disproportion, 
order  and  anarchy,  light  and  darkness,  life  and  death,  good 
and  evil. 

As  abstract  principles  and  independent  of  such  correla- 
tions, each  and  every  one  of  such  principles  would  be  incom- 
prehensible to  the  mind.  To  understand  any  one  of  such 
principles  our  minds  must  have  some  idea  of  its  correlative. 
To  have  an  idea  of  motion  we  must  have  an  idea  of  rest. 
No  one  of  these  principles,  without  at  least  the  abstract  ex- 
istence of  its  correlative,  can  be  said  to  exist  at  all — /.  <?.,  if 
there  was  no  order  there  would  be  no  anarchy ;  if  there  wan 
no  life  there  could  be  no  death ;  if  there  was  no  good  there 
could  be  no  evil,  and  the  possibility  of  evil  in  the  concrete 


286  SERMONS. 

is  compelled  to  be  created  in  order  that  there  might  exist 
good. 

It  is  not  necessary,  however,  that  both  correlatives  should 
exist  in  the  concrete  in  order  to  exist  at  all,  or  for  us  to  have 
an  idea  of  either  of  them  :  it  is  sufficient  that  one  of  them 
has  an  existence  in  the  abstract.  And  such  an  existence  all 
principles  of  quality,  character,  and  state,  have  had  from  all 
eternity.  Both  correlatives  generally  exist  in  a  concrete 
form  ;  but  the  necessity  of  the  existence  of  one  of  them 
from  the  correlation  that  the  other  may  exist,  is  not  found 
in  the  concrete,  but  in  the  abstract — if  in  the  concrete, 
then  with  reference  to  good  and  evil,  Manicheism,  or  some- 
thing similar,  is  correct.  Good  is  eternal  in  the  abstract  and 
eternal  in  the  concrete  ;  its  correlative  evil  is  eternal  in  the 
abstract  and  finite  in  the  concrete.  Evil  never  assumed  a 
concrete  form  as  far  as  we  know  till  Satan  became  false  to 
his  obligations  and  rebelled  against  God.  Both  good  and 
evil  now  exist  in  the  concrete  ;  and  like  the  foci  in  the 
ellipse,  they  are  the  two  foci  of  the  moral  universe.  To  one 
or  the  other  all  moral  natures  tend.  Around  one  or  the 
other  all  moral  natures  revolve.  Up  to  one  or  the  other 
all  moral  natures  grow.  Under  the  influence  of  one  or  the 
other  all  moral  natures  expand,  develop,  and  perfect  their 
characters. 

All  men  are  either  good  or  evil.  All  men  are  moral 
agents.  If  these  two  propositions  be  true,  it  follows  if  men 
are  good  or  evil  they  are  such  as  a  matter  of  choice — volun- 
tarily good  or  voluntarily  evil.  Indeed  there  is  no  other 
kind  of  good  or  evil.  If  this  be  true  again,  it  follows,  if  one 
man  be  voluntarily  good  it  gives  him  actual  merit,  if  another 
be  voluntarily  evil  it  gives  him  actual  demerit.  If  one  man 
possesses  merit  he  deserves  a  reward  whether  he  ever  re- 
ceives it  or  not ;  if  another  man  possesses  demerit  he  deserves 
punishment  whether  he  ever  receives  it  or  not.     Now  simple 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  287 

justice  requires  that  they  both  shall  have  their  deservings. 
It  is  not  disputed  that  merit  deserves  and  receives*  its  re- 
ward, then  in  all  the  strength  of  an  essential  correlation  de- 
merit does  and  must  receive  its  punishment.  And  the 
very  same  argument  which  would  give  merit  reward  beyond 
the  grave,  must  in  virtue  of  a  correlation  give  demerit  pun- 
ishment beyond  the  grave.  And  the  very  same  argument 
which  gives  that  fixedness  and  perpetuation  to  merit  beyond 
this  life  as  to  insure  an  eternal  reward,  gives  that  fixedness 
and  perpetuation  to  demerit  beyond  this  life  as  to  insure 
eternal  punishment. 

In  fact,  if  there  is  no  future  punishment  for  the  wicked, 
there  is  no  future  reward  for  the  righteous.  If  there  is  no 
eternal  future  punishment  for  the  wicked,  there  is  no  eternal 
future  reward  for  the  righteous.  The  Bible  unites  the  two, 
and  uses  the  same  language  to  express  the  time  when  both 
are  entered  into,  and  their  continuation.  A  state  of  future 
rewards  is  the  logical  result  of  good  in  the  concrete,  when 
the  subject  of  the  good  is  in  a  state  of  trial.  If  so,  a  state  of 
future  punishment  is  the  logical  result  of  evil  in  the  concrete, 
when  the  subject  of  the  evil  is  in  a  state  of  trial.  A  state  of 
future  rewards  and  a  state  of  future  punishments  are  not  cor- 
relatives, but  they  are  results  of  the  correlatives  of  good  and 
evil.  And  as  the  correlation  between  good  and  evil  neces- 
sitates the  existence  only  of  one  or  the  other  in  the  abstract 
and  not  in  the  concrete,  there  might  be  a  state  of  future 
punishments  without  a  state  of  future  rewards,  and  a  state 
of  future  rewards  without  a  state  of  future  punishments. 
The  necessity  of  the  existence  of  both  states  rests  only  on 
the  condition  that  the  respective  qualities  of  which  they  are 
the  results  assume  a  concrete  form.  Good  and  evil  having 
assumed  a  concrete  form,  the  existence  of  both  states  follows, 
and  the  admission  of  the  existence  of  the  one  is  logically  the 
admission  of  the  existence  of  both. 


288  SERMONS. 

If  it  be  assumed  as  an  evidence  of  a  state  of  future  rewards 
that  the  righteous  are  not  sufficiently  rewarded  in  this  world 
and  that  there  is  no  visible  distinction  made  between  them 
and  the  wicked  in  the  administration  of  God's  providence,  it 
can  also  be  assumed  with  equal  truth  as  evidence  of  a  state 
of  future  punishment  that  the  wicked  are  not  sufficiently  pun- 
ished in  this  world,  and  that  there  is  no  visible  distinction 
made  in  providence  between  them  and  the  righteous.  An 
equitable  administration  of  justice  requires  both  a  state  of 
future  rewards  and  a  state  of  future  punishments — and  if 
there  is  a  God,  He  is  just :  and  if  He  has  a  government,  it  is 
one  of  justice.  In  short,  if  there  is  no  hell,  there  is  no 
heaven ;  and  if  there  is  neither,  there  are  no  such  qualities 
in  the  universe  as  good  and  evil ;  and  if  there  are  no  such 
qualities,  there  is  not  an  intelligent,  free,  moral  agent  in  the 
universe — in  fact,  universal  being,  involving  mind  and  matter, 
relations,  principles,  and  things,  is  a  universal  falsehood. 

The  Scriptures  contrast  the  future  happiness  of  the  right- 
eous and  the  future  punishment  of  the  wicked,  and  use  the 
same  terms  as  to  the  duration  of  each  :  "  Many  of  them  that 
sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  shall  wake,  some  to  everlasting 
life,  and  some  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt."  Daniel 
is  speaking  of  the  resurrection  of  the  righteous  and  the 
wicked,  and  of  their  reward  and  punishment,  after  that  event. 
The  word  rendered  "  many "  in  this  text  is  also  rendered 
"  multitude."  The  sense  of  the  verse  is  that  the  multitude 
of  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  shall  awake,  etc. 
The  resurrection  spoken  of  shall  be  a  general  one,  for  the 
righteous  and  wicked  are  both  included,  and  there  is  no  other 
distinction  in  favor  of  a  partial  resurrection.  The  reward 
and  punishment  spoken  of  are  after  this  resurrection,  there- 
fore they  are  rewards  and  punishments  after  this  life — after 
death. 

The  duration  of  both  is  described  by  the  same  word,  it  is 


ETERNAL  PUNISHMENT.  289 

"  everlasting  life "  and  " everlasting  contempt."  The  Hebrew 
word  translated  everlasting,  is  Olam.  Let  us  see  what  is 
the  general  usage  of  this  word  in  the  old  Bible  :    "  Abraham 

called  on  .  .  on  the  name  of  .  .   the  everlasting 

God" — olam  God.  "The  eternal  God  is  thy  refuge,  and 
underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms" — olam  arms.  "  Lift  up 
your  heads,  O  ye  gates ;  and  be  ye  lift  up,  ye  everlasting 
doors  ;  and  the  King  of  glory  shall  come  in  " — olam  doors. 
"Lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting" — olam.  ''The  righteous 
is  an  everlasting  foundation" — olam  foundation.  "  And  the 
ransomed  of  the  Lord  shall  return,  and  come  to  Zion  with 
songs  and  everlasting  joy  upon  their  heads" — olam  joy. 
"The  Lord  is  the  true  God,  he  is  the  living  God,  and  an 
everlasting  King  " — olam  King.  "  I  will  give  them  an  ever- 
lasting name,  that  shall  not  be  cut  off" — olam  name.  "The 
Lord  shall  be  unto  thee  an  everlasting  light " — olam  light. 
"  Everlasting  joy  shall  be  unto  them  " — olam  joy.  Nebu- 
chadnezzar in  his  proclamation  to  the  people,  in  speaking  of 
God,  says:  "His  kingdom  is  an  everlasting  Kingdom" — • 
olam  kingdom.  After  the  terrible  judgment  which  fell  on 
Nebuchadnezzar,  he  says,  "And  1  blessed  the  Most  High,  and 
I  praised  and  honored  him  that  liveth  forever" — liveth 
alema.  Said  Darius,  "  I  make  a  decree,  that  in  every  do- 
minion of  my  kingdom,  men  tremble  and  fear  before  the  God 
of  Daniel;  for  he  is  the  living  God  and  steadfast  forever" 
• — steadfast  lealemin.  Speaking  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ, 
Daniel  says:  "In  the  days  of  these  kings  shall  the  God  of 
heaven  set  up  a  kingdom  which  shall  never  be  destroyed" 
— destroyed  lealemin.  "The  saints  of  the  Most  High  shall 
take  the  kingdom,  and  possess  the  kingdom  .forever"— 
possess  the  kingdom  adalema.     "The  man  clothed  in  linen 

held  up  his  right  hand  and  left  hand  unto  heaven, 

and  swore  by  him  that  liveth  forever  "  —liveth  haolam.    "  The 
Lord  is  good,  his  mercy  is   everlasting" — leolam.      "The 
13 


2QO  SERMONS. 

mercy  of  the  Lord  is  from  everlasting  even  to  everlasting 
upon  them  that  fear  him  " — from  everlasting  even  to  everlast- 
ing, maolam  vead  olam.  The  good  man  "  shall  not  be 
moved  forever" — leolam.  " Thy  righteousness  is  an  ever- 
lasting righteousness" — leolam.  "  In  a  little  wrath  I  hid  my 
face  from  thee  a  moment;  but  with  everlasting  (olam)  kind- 
ness will  I  have  mercy  on  thee,  saith  the  Lord  thy  Redeemer : 
for  this  is  as  the  waters  of  Noah  unto  me  :  for  as  I  have 
sworn  that  the  waters  of  Noah  should  no  more  go  over  the 
earth ;  so  have  I  sworn  that  I  would  not  be  wroth  with  thee, 
nor  rebuke  thee.  For  the  mountains  shall  depart,  and  the 
hills  be  removed,  but  my  kindness  shall  not  depart  from  thee, 
neither  shall  the  covenant  of  my  peace  be  removed,  saith 
the  Lord  that  hath  mercy  on  thee." 

I  have  given  you  enough  of  the  Scriptures  to  show  you 
from  general  usage  the  term  olam  means  duration  without 
end,  and  that  this  is  its  literal,  primary  meaning,  in  the  Bible. 
It  is  so  with  'aion'  its  equivalent  in  the  Greek,  and  *  ever- 
lasting? '  eternal?  its  equivalent  in  the  English.  Duration 
without  end  is  the  proper  and  usual  signification  of  the  terms, 
everlasting,  eternal,  etc.  If  not,  we  have  no  word  to  express 
eternal  duration,  except  by  inference.  The  word  is  never 
to  be  considered  as  used  figuratively,  unless  when  used  with 
reference  to  things  whose  nature  from  necessity  limits  its 
meaning.  If  this  is  not  a  sound  rule  of  interpretation,  nothing 
can  be  relied  upon  when  expressed  in  the  words  of  any  lan- 
guage. The  subject  to  which  the  word  refers  must  demand 
necessarily  its  limitation,  or  only  a  part  of  its  meaning. 
When  applied  to  life  and  death,  to  angels  and  God — to  any- 
thing beyond  time — they  mean  duration  without  end.  Nc 
such  necessity  is  found  when  applied  to  things  in  time  and 
of  time  simply,  the  use  is  figurative,  and  they  mean  a  longer 
or  indefinite  period.  For  instance,  everlasting  mountains; 
perpetual  hills,  everlasting  Abrahamic  covenant.     The  sub- 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  29 1 

jects  demand  from  their  nature  a  limitation,  and  the  use  is 
figurative.  We  talk  about  eternal  mountains,  to-day,  and  we 
deed  property  to  our  heirs  forever.  If  olam,  and  the  equiva- 
lent terms,  do  not  mean  duration  without  an  end,  they  have 
no  literal  meaning  at  all — and  there  never  was  a  word  which 
had  only  a  figurative  meaning.  Their  very  use  as  figures 
when  a  great  length  of  time  was  required,  confirms  what  we 
call  their  literal  meaning. 

I  might  refer  you  to  the  numerous  passages  in  the  Bible 
rendered  "forever  and  ever" — le  olam  v'aed — which  are  but 
more  intensive  ways  of  expressing  the  simple  meaning  of  the 
word  olam — everlasting.  They  all  confirm  and  strengthen 
our  position.  I  might  say,  however,  that  "  forever  and  ever  " 
is  never  used  in  a  limited  sense.  How  terrible  the  text  be- 
comes, "  Many  of  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth 
shall  wake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and  some  to  shame  and 
everlasting  contempt;"  and  how  boldly  the  truth  stands 
out,  if  there  is  no  eternal  punishment  for  the  wicked,  there 
is  no  eternal  reward  for  the  righteous. 

In  the  New  Testament  we  have  the  final  and  future  state 
of  the  righteous  and  wicked  in  many  places  in  contrast, 
and  the  same  terms  used  with  reference  to  the  duration  of 
both.  Hear  a  few  out  of  a  great  many  :  "  And  these  shall 
go  away  into  everlasting  punishment;  but  the  righteous  into 
life  eternal."  The  reference  of  this  verse  to  the  future  state 
of  the  righteous  and  wicked  is  indisputable.  It  is  at  the 
end  of  a  chapter  full  of  such  contrasts,  and  the  retribution  of 
the  wicked  in  the  chapter  is  appalling,  which  will  be  noticed 
in  its  proper  place.  "  Everlasting  punishment  " — "life  eter- 
nal"— "everlasting"  and  "eternal"  are  the  different  ren- 
derings of  the  same  word.  The  word  in  both  instances  is 
aionion.  Everlasting  punishment,  everlasting  life,  eternal 
punishment,  eternal  life,  aionion  is  from  aion  the  Greek 
equivalent  of  the  Hebrew  olam.     It  means    primarily   and 


292  SERMONS. 

literally  duration  without  end.  When  used  with  reference  to 
things  temporal  its  use  is  figurative.  "  He  that  believeth 
and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved  ;  but  he  that  believeth  not 
shall  be  damned."  The  damnation  is  as  final  and  unending 
as  the  salvation.  No  probation  beyond — such  a  thing  is 
never  intimated. in  the  Bible.  Universalism  would  make  the 
verse  read,  "  He  that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be 
saved  ;  but  he  chat  believeth  not  shall  be  saved  too."  With 
such  a  reading,  gospel  and  faith  are  both  nonsense.  Other 
passages  and  the  consideration  of  the  Greek  aion,  I  will  con- 
sider hereafter  ;  suffice  it  to  say  that  every  word  which  means 
duration  without  end,  and  is  applied  to  the  duration  of  God, 
and  the  happiness  and  continued  being  of  the  righteous, 
is  applied  to  the  punishment  and  continued  being  of  the 
wicked. 

The  following  Scriptures  are  quoted,  to  show  that  there 
are  terms  which  show  the  eternity  of  God,  and  the  eternity 
of  the  happiness  of  the  righteous,  which  are  not  used  with 
reference  to  the  wicked:  "Uncorruptible  God."  "This 
corruptible  must  put  on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal  must 
put  on  immortality."  "  After  the  power  of  an  endless  life." 
Uncorruptible  and  immortal  are  from  the  same  Greek  word 
which  means  indissolubility.  So  does  the  word  Akatalutos 
translated  in  the  verse  above  endless.  Indissolubility,  inde- 
structibility— the  idea  of  duration  is  not  in  them.  Eternal 
duration  from  these  words  is  but  an  inference.  And  if  they 
are  ever  used  with  reference  to  this  idea,  the  use  is  figurative. 
Every  word  meaning  duration  without  end  is  used  with  refer- 
ence to  the  future  punishment  of  the  wicked,  and  the  same 
words  which  tell  us  God  is  eternal,  and  the  happiness  of  the 
righteous  is  eternal.  I  cannot  express  to-day  duration  with- 
out an  end  without  the  use  of  the  words  eternal,  everlasting — 
aion — olam. 

The  eternal  punishment  of  the  wicked,  the  eternal  happi- 


ETERNAL  PUNISHMENT.  293 

ness  of  the  righteous,  and  the  eternity  of  God,  as  far  as  Rev- 
elation is  concerned,  form  the  same  building.  The  universale 
ist  has  placed  his  shoulders  against  the  basement  pillars,  and 
if  he  succeed  the  whole  structure  falls ;  but  he  and  his  co- 
laborers  may  toil  and  sweat,  and  leave  their  bones  to  moul- 
der away  in  the  cellars,  but  God  lives  on,  the  righteous 
shout  on,  and  the  damned  groan  on — throughout  all  eternity 
— O  Eternity ! 

The  meaning  of  such  a  word  in  its  connection  with  the 
future  punishment  of  the  wicked  is  dreadful — O  Eternity  ! 
Its  significance  is  as  high  and  wide  and  deep  and  grand  as 
God  is.  He  fills  it,  and  it  fills  Him,  and  all  the  worlds, 
and  all  the  men,  and  all  the  demons,  and  all  the  angels,  but 
perform  their  parts  in  its  awful  shadow.  I  can  tell  you  what 
time  is,  but  eternity  cannot  be  defined.  Time  can  be 
measured,  because  it  is  first  measured  by  the  revolutions  of 
the  planets  and  the  aspect  of  the  stars  ;  because  having  a 
beginning  and  an  end  its  past  can  be  increased,  and  its  future 
diminished.  It  can  be  defined  because  it  has  parts,  these 
parts  sustain  relations  to  each  other  and  the  whole — any  one 
of  them  can  be  selected  out  of  the  whole  and  given  a  name 
— any  one  of  its  parts  can  furnish  an  ultimate  for  the  mind 
to  reason  about  all  the  others.  It  can  be  defined,  because 
having  parts  it  can  be  analyzed. 

But  eternity  cannot  be  defined.  Beginningless  and  end- 
less it  cannot  be  measured — its  past  increased,  its  future  di- 
minished. It  has  no  past,  it  has  no  future,  it  has  no  ends,  it 
has  no  middle,  it  has  no  parts — an  unanalyzable,  tremen- 
dous unity.  If  all  the  mountains  of  all  the  worlds  were 
pressing  upon  the  brain,  they  could  not  weigh  it  down  more 
heavily  than  eternity's  least  conception.  It  is  something 
which  always  was,  and  is,  and  always  will  be.  It  is  coeval 
with  God  ;  it  began  when  He  began,  and  He  had  no  begin- 
ning ;  it  will    end  when  He  will  end,  and  He  will  have  DC 


294  SERMCNS. 

ending.  It  is  an  unoriginated,  beginningless,  endless,  meas- 
ureless, imperishable,  indescribable,  undefinable  thing.  Itself 
f  is  its  only  definition.  If  asked,  what  is  eternity  ?  we  can  only 
answer  "  Eternity,"  and  in  our  answer  confess  our  weakness 
and  folly.  It  is  older  than  the  world,  older  than  the  sun,  older 
than  the  stars,  older  than  the  angels,  as  old  as  God  ;  yet  no 
older  now  than  when  worlds,  suns,  stars,  and  angels  were 
made,  and  never  will  be  any  older,  yet  never  was  any 
younger. 

It  is  an  infinite  circle.  A  circle  itself  is  unending. 
Mount  the  car  of  thunder,  drawn  by  steeds  of  lightning,  and 
ride  around  the  world,  and  find  the  end  of  the  equator.  Fas- 
ten your  horses  to  your  chariot  on  the  top  of  the  Andes,  fa- 
cing to  the  east.  Take  the  reins,  apply  the  lash,  and  roll 
over  the  flowers,  over  the  trees,  over  the  rivers,  over  the 
cities,  over  the  sands,  over  the  islands,  over  the  continents, 
over  the  seas,  and  girdle  the  world,  and  girdle  it  again,  and 
girdle  it  forever.  Where  the  line  begins,  and  where  it  ends, 
you  never  will  find — O  Eternity !  Mount  Phoebus'  solar 
car,  and  seat  yourself  beside  the  driver,  and  search  for  the 
end  of  the  ecliptic.  Lay  on  the  burning  whip,  and  see  the 
fiery-maned  and  foot-winged  steeds  dash  through  the  constel- 
lations— admiring  worlds  standing  out  of  your  tracks,  and 
space's  abysms  gaping  beneath  you  ;  and  drive  on  till  the 
wheels  of  your  car  shall  shiver,  and  their  worn-out  axles 
break,  and  the  over-driven  horses  die.  and  you  are  lost  where 
no  angel  will  find  your  bones — and  you  will  find  no  end  to 
the  ethereal  circle.  But  these  circles  are  finite,  and  while 
you  cannot  find  the  end,  yet  you,  in  the  search  for  it,  pass 
along  the  same  track  again  and  again.  Eternity  is  an  infinite 
circle,  and  along  its  line  you  may  travel  forever  without 
reaching  your  starting-point — an  infinite  circle,  and  now,  the 
portentous  now,  is  its  centre.  Being  infinite,  its  centre  is 
anywhere  and  everywh  re,  within  its  circumference.     With 


ETERNAL  PUNISHMENT.  295 

reference  to  us,  whatever  was  now,  is  now,  or  will  be  no7u, 
is  its  centre.  We  were  born  in  the  centre  of  the  circle,  we 
will  die  in  the  centre,  and  remain  there  forever. 

Eternity  is  an  infinite  line.  The  strongest  winged  angel 
who  cleaves  the  illimitable  ether  may  track  it,  and  track  it 
forever,  yet  he  can  no  more  find  its  end  than  he  can  find  the 
cradle  or  tomb  of  God.  The  plodding  and  incarnated  soul 
of  man  can  find  it  just  as  quickly.  It  is  a  day  without  a 
morning,  a  day  without  an  evening — an  eternal  noon.  It 
was  just  noon  when  the  world  was  made,  it  will  be  just  noon 
when  the  world  is  destroyed — high  noon  forever.  O  Eter- 
nity !  The  idea  deepens,  widens,  and  towers,  till  the  human 
mind,  confounded  and  crushed,  shrinks  into  infinite  littleness, 
and  frightened  flies  into  its  temple,  closes  all  the  doors,  and 
tries  to  hide  its  little  self  forever. 

O  Eternity  !  All  languages  beg  at  thy  footstool  for  one 
word  to  tell  thy  name ;  and  all  sciences  pile  their  symbols  at 
thy  feet,  and  implore  thee  for  one  illustration  of  thy  length. 
But  thy  oracles  are  dumb  because  of  the  dulness  of  the 
querist — God  can  only  be  thy  questioner.  And  thy  vast 
pendulum  beating  to  the  birth  and  death  of  worlds,  ever  vi- 
brating, goes  and  comes,  and  goes  and  comes  forever — and 
all  that  we  can  do  is  to  gaze  in  silent  wonder.  O  Eternity  ! 
Mother  of  cycles,  and  parent  of  ages,  whose  incalculable  and 
incomprehensible  value  no  subtraction  can  diminish,  no  ad- 
dition increase, — thou  only  type  of  Deity,  and  day  of  His 
duration, — what  must  be  thy  significance  when  joined  to  the 
stern  penalty  of  sin  thou  becomest  to  the  lost  Eternal  death. 
Dreadful  phrase  !  It  will  be  written  with  a  fiery  pen  upon 
all  the  walls  of  hell,  and  seared  into  every  arch  by  the  light- 
ning's blaze,  and  sounded  through  every  dungeon  by  the 
thunder's  horrid  breath.  It  is  the  motto  upon  the  seal  of 
God  which  fastens  the  doors  of  woe.  There  are  no  farewells  in 
heaven.     Such  a  word  never  rang  in  chords  of  breaking  an- 


296  SERMONS. 

guish  from  the  harps  of  the  redeemed,  or  shrieked  in  theii 
harmonious  preludes,  or  danced  upon  their  vibrating  strings 
— also,  there  are  no  farewells  in  hell — O  Eternity  !  Eter- 
nity !  ! 

The  thought  has  made  me  restless  at  night,  "  Knowing 
the  terror  of  the  Lord."  May  it  ring  through  your  ears.  It 
always  is  the  first  motive  to  prompt  a  sinner  to  repent. 


SERMON   XXII. 

THE    FUTURE    AND    ETERNAL     PUNISHMENT   OF    THE    W  CKED 
— (DISCOURSE    II.). 

"  These  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment :  but  the  righteous 
into  life  Eternal." — Matt.  xxv.  46. 

THE  same  words  used  to  express  the  duration  of  God 
and  the  duration  of  the  reward  of  the  good,  are  used 
in  the  text  and  in  the  Bible  to  express  the  duration  of  the 
punishment  of  the  wicked.  Indeed,  every  word  in  the  Bible 
meaning  duration  without  end  is  applied  to  the  future  punish- 
ment of  the  wicked.  All  this  has  been  considered,  and  also 
the  apparent  exceptions  to  the  statement  have  been  con- 
sidered. I  have  but  a  few  more  remarks  upon  the  word 
translated  in  the  text  "everlasting"  and  "eternal."  It  is 
the  same  word  in  both  cases — aionion  from  aion. 

Aion  is  derived  from  aei,  always,  and  on,  being;  on  is  the 
present  participle  of  eimi  to  be.  Aion  signifies  "  always  be- 
ing1 


ever-being — everlasting.     This  is  the  literal  meaning 


of  aion.  The  argument  with  reference  to  the  literal  and  fig- 
urative meaning  of  words,  and  the  rule  determining  the  matter 
have  been  elaboratively  treated  already,  and  I  will  not  repeat. 
Aristotle,  who  is  as  good  authority  as  can  be  given  for  the  use 
of  a  word,  uses  aion  in  the  sense  of  eternity  in  this  sentence 
in  his  "  De  Caelo  "—where  he  is  "  describing  the  highest 
heaven  as  the  residence  of  the  gods":  "There  is  neither 
place,  nor  vacuum,  nor  time  beyond.  Wherefore  the  things 
there  are  not  by  nature  adapted  to  exist  in  place  ;  nor  does 


298  SERMONS. 

time  make  them  grow  old  ;  neither  under  the  .highest  (hea- 
ven) is  there  any  change  of  any  one  of  these  things,  they 
being  placed  beyond  it ;  but  unchangeable  and  passionless, 
having  the  best,  even  self-sufficient  life,  they  continue  through 
all  eternity  "  (aiona).  Whenever  the  ancients  used  the  word 
aion  with  reference  to  the  divine,  the  unseen,  the  spiritual, 
they  used  it  to  signify  duration  without  end.  It  is  so  used 
in  the  Septuagint,  in  our  Bible,  and  is  the  literal  use  of  the 
word.  "For  the  things  that  are  seen  are  (pros  kaira)  tem- 
poral ;  but  the  things  that  are  not  seen  are  (aionid)  eternal." 
The  word  is  only  figurative,  and  is  figurative  when  used  with 
reference  to  temporal  things — things,  which  from  their  nature 
forbid  the  idea  of  eternal  duration. 

There  must  be  a  state  of  future  punishment  for  the  wicked, 
because  the  amount  of  the  criminality  of  their  sins  cannot  be 
estimated  during  time.  There  is  no  government  without 
law.  Law  is  a  nullity  without  a  penalty.  In  fact,  as  law  is 
a  necessity  to  government,  so  penalty  is  a  necessity  to  law. 
Punishment  for  the  violation  of  law  lies  at  the  very  founda- 
tion of  all  government.  Upon  the  certainty  with  which  the 
penalty  of  the  violation  of  law  is  inflicted,  depends  the  ex- 
istence and  rectitude  of  the  government.  Government  has 
no  power  unless  its  laws  have  a  commensurate  penalty,  and 
unless  it  is  well  known  by  the  subjects  of  the  government, 
that  the  penalty  will  be  enforced.  If  every  man  in  our 
country  felt  that  the  penalties  of  our  laws  would  certainly  fall 
upon  him  if  he  violated  the  law,  crime  would  cease.  Rob 
God's  law  of  a  commensurate  and  certain  penalty,  and 
Christianity  and  churches  would  soon  disappear  from  the 
world.  To-day  Universalism  is  a  failure  in  persuading  men 
to  be  religious.  Revival  results  do  not  follow  their  minis- 
trations, many  of  them  are  good  people  and  Christians,  but 
the  most  of  them  are  worldly,  and  merely  nominal  believers. 
Its  tendency  is  to  open  and  final  infidelity.     The  churches 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  299 

which  teach  and  believe  the  doctrine  of  the  future  and  eter- 
nal punishment  of  the  wicked,  are  the  churches  which  per- 
suade most  men  to  be  religious,  which  develop  and  make  the 
most  prayerful,  earnest,  and  devout  worshippers  and  workers, 
which  carry  on  all  the  missionary  operations  of  the  world, 
which  reclaim  the  greatest  sinners  and  render  permanent  to 
a  great  degree  their  reclamation,  and  which  have  rendered 
the  earth  vocal  with  the  shouts  of  victory  on  earth's  dying- 
beds.     Universalism  does  not  produce  these  results. 

Man  is  a  subject  of  the  Divine  government.  The  govern- 
ment being  Divine,  it  is  one  of  justice.  Justice  requires  the 
man  to  discharge  the  obligations  of  duty  arising  out  of  his 
relations.  He  being  able  to  meet  the  requirement,  if  he 
fails,  or  violates  these  obligations,  justice  requires  that  he 
should  be  judged,  and  have  a  punishment  equal  to  the 
criminality  of  his  failures,  and  the  criminality  of  his  viola- 
tions. Every  failure  and  violation,  or  sin,  must  be  weighed 
in  the  scales  of  justice,  and  the  degree  of  criminality  attach- 
ing to  it  fairly  adjudged.  To  affix  the  degree  of  criminality 
attaching  to  the  sin,  the  sin  must  be  examined  in  reference  to 
the  elements  composing  the  sin.  After  the  degree  of  crim- 
inality attaching  to  the  sin  is  fully  estimated,  then,  and  then 
only,  can  an  equal  punishment  be  meted  out.  The  degree 
of  criminality  attaching  to  the  sin  cannot  be  estimated  dur- 
ing the  sinner's  life  on  earth.  With  reference  to  the  inten- 
tion prompting  the  sin,  and  the  principle  involved  in  it,  the 
criminality  might  be  estimated,  because  the  intention  and 
principle  are  connate  with,  and  reach  their  development  with 
the  act,  but  the  influence  of  the  act  sweeps  through  all  time. 

Man  is  but  a  part  of  the  vast  system  of  God,  which  is  of 
itself  a  unity,  and  his  thoughts,  words,  and  acts  have  their 
influencing  impress  upon  the  universe.  I  might  urge  this 
from  several  scientific  considerations,  but  will  not.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  every  man  is  connected  with  the  past,  present, 


300  SERMONS. 

and  future  by  a  thousand  cords  of  thrilling  sympathy  which 
make  individual  isolation  impossible.  Cords  of  intellectual, 
spiritual,  moral,  physical,  domestic,  social,  national,  lineal, 
and  religious  sympathy,  connect  him  with  all  generations 
dead  and  unborn.  He  is  the  active  and  sensitive  centre  of 
a  reticulation  of  sympathies  whereby  dead  ages  impress  their 
character  upon  him,  and  he  in  his. turn  impresses  his  charac- 
ter upon  ages  yet  to  come.  By  them  he  receives  the  influ- 
ences of  the  past  ;  by  them  he  transmits  his  own  influence, 
modified  by  the  influences  of  the  past,  to  posterity.  Each 
thread  of  sympathy  is  a  conductor.  Every  word  and  every 
act  of  every  man,  dancing  with  feet  of  fire  upon  the  quiv- 
ering cords,  flashes  its  influence  upon  the  latest  generation ; 
exciting  in  its  course  the  sensoria  of  numberless  other 
sympathetic  systems,  and  these  still  others,  all  acting  obedi- 
ently to  the  touch,  and  scattering  the  influence  without 
diminution  till  the  last  day.  Let  the  sinner  reject  Christ,  if 
he  dare,  sin  in  private,  reflecting  from  his  character  upon 
others,  directly  or  indirectly,  his  influence  will  live  during 
time  ;  and  as  long  as  it  affects  men  during  their  probation, 
he  is  and  will  be  accountable  for  it,  living  or  dead.  The 
Bible  teaches  that  men  will  not  only  be  rewarded  for  their 
doings,  but  also  for  the  fruit  of  their  doings. 

Now,  if  the  influences  of  men's  sins  must  be  estimated  to- 
gether, with  the  intention  prompting  them,  and  the  principle 
involved  in  them,  in  order  to  affix  the  proper  degree  of  crim- 
inality attaching  to  them,  that  an  equal  punishment  might  be 
meted  out  for  them,  it  must  be  when  the  influence  of  their 
sins  in  time  ceases.  If  the  influences  of  men's  sins  live 
through  all  time,  and  men  are  accountable  for  these  influen- 
ces through  all  time,  then  men  cannot  be  punished  in  propor- 
tion to  their  guilt  till  time  be  no  more ;  therefore  there  is  a 
state  of  future  punishment.  But  cannot  God,  from  His  ac- 
quaintance with  the  future,  estimate  the  varied  and  multi- 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  30 1 

plied  tendencies  of  every  sin  in  the  advance,  and  mete  out 
an  equivalent  punishment  in  some  form  or  other  in  this 
world  ?  No  :  true,  God's  acquaintance  with  the  future  is  per- 
fect, but  to  inflict  punishment  or  bestow  reward  for  actions 
not  yet  committed  by  the  agent,  and  results  not  yet  accom- 
plished, would  be  in  violation  of  every  principle  of  justice. 
Though  God  in  virtue  of  His  perfection  may  be  perfectly 
cognizant  of  the  sin  and  its  influences  in  advance  of  its  actual 
and  present  connection  with  the  agent,  yet  as  far  as  their  re- 
lation to  the  agent  is  concerned  they  are  as  if  God  did  not 
know  them,  and  as  if  they  would  never  take  place. 

And  this  future  punishment  is  eternal.  1.  Every  word  in 
the  Hebrew  and  Greek  languages  meaning  duration  without 
an  end  is  applied  to  it,  and  if  olam,  aion  and  their  various 
constructions,  as  applied  to  the  future  punishment  of  the 
wicked,  do  not  mean  duration  without  end,  there  is  no  word 
in  either  language  which  does,  and  they  never  had  the  idea — 
which  is  absurd.  2.  If  not  eternal,  God  is  not,  and  the  re- 
ward of  the  righteous  is  not.  3.  This  punishment  is  put 
after  the  final  resurrection.  4.  Some  sins  were  not  to  be 
forgiven  in  this  life,  or  the  life  to  come.  5.  The  duration  of 
the  punishment  of  the  wicked  is  to  be  the  same  with  that  of 
the  Devil  and  his  angels. 

It  is  eternal  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and  as  a  matter  of  right. 
As  a  matter  of  fact.  Hear  three  truths  and  the  conclusion  : 
man  is  immortal— this  is  one  truth ;  man  is  placed  in  a  state 
of  trial — this  is  the  second  truth  ;  his  trial  will  terminate  with 
his  life— this  is  the  third  truth.  That  man  is  immortal  is  the 
recognized  and  fundamental  truth  in  the  Bible,  and  in  every 
system  of  religion.  It  has  a  profound  evidence  in  the  hu- 
man consciousness,  and  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  It  is  sup- 
posed to  be  an  undoubted  element  in  every  man's  faitli  in 
this  congregation,  and  is  conceded  to  be  true  by  Universal- 
ists  and  Restorationists,  as  well  as  those  who  believe  in  the 


302  SERMONS. 

eternity  of  future  punishment.  The  Annihilationists  deny  it 
with  reference  to  the  wicked — but  I  will  have  to  do  with  thein 
in  another  discourse.  Man,  good  or  bad,  is  immortal,  so  you 
all  believe. 

The  second  truth  that  man  is  in  a  state  of  trial  is  evident : 
i.  From  the  nature,  character,  and  administration  of  the  dis- 
pensations of  Providence  to  which  he  is  subject.  2.  From 
the  antagonistic  moral  influences  exerted  upon  him.  3. 
From  the  different  moral  conditions  to  which  he  is  subject. 
4.  From  the  character  of  the  world  in  which  he  resides.  I 
could  elaborate,  illustrate,  and  prove  these  propositions,  and 
establish  the  truth  of  my  thesis,  as  you  all  at  once  perceive, 
if  it  was  necessary.  But  you  see  their  force  and  point.  Man 
is  in  a  state  of  moral  discipline.  He  is  conscious  that  all  in- 
fluences surrounding  him,  moral,  social,  and  physical,  are  in- 
struments of  discipline,  and  discipline  only. 

Indeed,  being  in  a  state  of  trial  of  itself  is  evidence  of  a 
state  of  future  punishment.  If  man's  life  in  this  world  is  one 
of  discipline,  and  is  spent  in  a  state  of  trial,  it  is  presumptive 
that  there  is  something  beyond  it,  whose  existence  is  the  rea- 
son of  the  discipline  and  the  reason  of  the  trial,  or  we  have 
the  master  absurdity  of  discipline  without  a  purpose,  and 
trial  without  an  object.  There  is  something  final  beyond 
man's  probation,  and  that  final  something  is  a  system  of  re- 
wards and  punishments.  From  the  very  nature  of  man's 
trial  it  must  be  both.  Again,  if  men  are  in  a  state  of  trial 
while  they  live,  they  cannot  be  punished  for  the  sins  commit- 
ted during  their  trial,  till  their  trial  be  ended — it  must  be 
after  probation,  hence  in  the  future.  Merited  punishment 
finally  inflicted  in  a  state  of  probation,  during  any  time  ot 
which  the  sinner  by  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  could 
wipe  out  the  dark  record  of  his  iniquities,  and  virtually  undo 
all  he  had  ever  done,  would  introduce  an  inconsistency  in 
the  Divine  administration.     If  the  administration  of  God'a 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  303 

Justice  required  the  immediate  infliction  of  final  punishment 
upon  the  aggressor,  or  any  time  during  his  probation,  and 
the  administration  of  God's  grace  extended  pardon  at  any 
time,  these  administrations  of  God  would  conflict  with  each 
other.  If  men  are  punished  for  their  sins  at  all,  the  punish- 
ment must  be  subsequent  to  trial,  therefore  there  is  a  state 
of  future  punishment.  That  a  state  of  trial  implies  a  state 
of  future  punishment,  though  true,  is  not  my  purpose  now. 
That  man  is  in  a  state  of  trial  is  the  second  truth,  or  propo- 
sition, in  showing  that  the  eternal  punishment  of  the  finally 
wicked  is  a  matter  of  fact. 

The  third  proposition  is,  man's  trial  or  probation  will  ter- 
minate with  the  present  life.  A  subsequent  probation  would 
afford  no  increased  facilities  for  repentance  and  reformation. 
If  it  is  a  probation  at  all,  good  and  evil  must  be  presented 
to  the  man,  and  there  must  be  no  undue  influence  exerted 
upon  him  to  affect  his  choice.  He  must  be  perfectly  free 
to  choose,  or  goodness  would  be  impossible.  There  is  no 
goodness  in  a  forced  act,  and  it  makes  no  difference  as  to 
the  principle,  whether  the  force  exercised  is  slight  and  grad- 
ual running  through  ages  of  probation,  or  whether  the  force 
exercised  be  all  at  once.  Another  probation  in  the  facilities 
it  may  afford  can  be  no  better  than  this,  and  the  chances  for 
being  good  or  evil  being  equal,  there  are  no  more  probabil- 
ities of  the  wicked  in  the  future  choosing  good,  than  now  ; 
and  we  have  an  eternal  probation,  or  eternal  succession  of 
probations  ;  and  an  eternal  probation,  as  far  as  the  argument 
is  concerned,  is  the  same  as  an  eternal  hell.  Really,  as  the 
continuity  of  man's  existence,  and  the  unbroken  chains  of 
his  responsibleness  to  God,  remain,  as  the  advocates  of  this 
hypothesis  assume,  in  their  dogma  itself,  a  sinner  in  the 
second  probation  will  have  the  sins  of  this  probation,  also, 
in  his  way,  and  will  have  increased  difficulties  as  to  his 
maturer  bad  character  to  overcome,  and  the  probabilities  of 


304  SERMONS. 

his  reformation  and  repentance  are  lessened,  not  increased, 
in  a  future  probation,  and  an  eternal  excision  from  God  must 
result  at  last,  and  what  is  this  but  hell  itself? 

Let  a  man  be  convinced  in  this  life  that  he  will  have 
another  chance  in  a  second  probation,  and  he  will  naturally 
feel,  whether  he  really  does  it  or  not,  the  disposition  to  post- 
pone his  work  of  preparation  till  the  second  probation.  Let 
him  have  a  second  probation,  and  it  will  be  demonstrative 
to  his  mind  that  in  the  government  of  God  there  will  be  no 
final  and  eternal  punishment,  but  that  he  will  be  continued 
in  probation  till  he  does  choose  good ;  and  according  to  the 
laws  of  human  nature — which  forever  remain  the  same — he 
will  postpone  the  work  of  repentance  and  reformation  for- 
ever; and  an  eternal  probation,  with  reference  to  some  at 
least,  must  follow,  and  an  eternal  probation  would  make  the 
Divine  administration  an  unmeaning  parade  of  principles 
and  agencies  leading  to  no  practical  results,  and  would 
utterly  annihilate  the  doctrine  of  a  future  retribution  of  any 
kind.  Upon  this  principle  a  man  may  escape  punishment 
for  sin  forever.  If  saved  at  all,  God  must  force  him,  and  if 
forced  he  will  be  a  sinner  still,  and  God  will  have  to  save  a 
sinner  in  his  sins. 

Again,  the  Bible  teaches  that  there  is  but  one  name  under 
heaven,  whereby  men  can  be  saved,  and  that  is  the  name  of 
Jesus.  Faith  in  Jesus  is  the  condition  of  the  pardon  of  sin, 
and  the  sole  condition.  The  Bible  also  teaches  that  at  the 
end  of  man's  probation  as  a  race,  Jesus  will  give  the  keys 
of  the  kingdom  to  the  Father — that  his  mediation  between 
God  and  sinners  will  cease  forever — that  His  name  will  no 
longer  be  available  for  a  sinner  in  seeking  pardon  for  sin. 
If  a  sinner  may  be  saved  and  forgiven  in  a  second  proba- 
tion, it  must  be  upon  other  conditions  than  in  this  life. 
Suppose  all  sinners  would  wait  till  the  second  probation  for 
pardon    and  salvation,  then  Jesus  will  have  died  in   vain, 


ETERNAL  PUNISHMENT.  305 

and  God's  present  plan  to  save  sinners,  and  which  has  cost 
so  much,  is  foolishness  and  a  nullity.  If  God  can  forgive 
and  save  a  sinner  in  a  future  probation  without  a  Saviour, 
from  mere  prerogative,  He  can  do  it  in  this  life.  It'  He 
cannot  do  it  in  this  life,  He  cannot  do  it  at  all.  In  a  second 
probation  a  sinner  must  be  saved  upon  other  and  different 
conditions.  If  not  through  the  merits  of  another,  it  must 
be  through  the  merits  of  himself.  Passing  into  another  pro- 
bation as  a  sinner,  he  can  have  no  merits.  Any  present 
obedience  he  might  render  would  not  insure  him  pardon 
for  his  past  sins,  unless  he  can  perform  more  than  the  law 
requires. 

Again,  the  doctrine  is  not  intimated  in  the  Bible  from 
beginning  to  end.  It  is  taught  that  the  sinner  will  be  pun- 
ished after  death,  and  every  word  in  the  Hebrew,  Greek, 
and  English  languages  implying  duration  without  end,  is 
used  to  express  the  continuation  of  the  punishment.  It  is 
said  that  God  told  Adam  that  in  the  day  he  ate  the  forbidden 
fruit,  he  should  surely  die,  but  that  Adam  did  not  die,  and 
that  while  God  declared  that  death  would  be  the  result  of 
Adam's  disobedience,  yet  God  intended  at  the  same  time  to 
save  Adam  from  death  in  case  he  fell.  But  this  proves 
nothing  as  to  the  declarations  of  God  with  reference  to  the 
future  punishment  of  the  wicked.  Adam  did  die  in  the  very 
hour  he  ate  the  fruit,  and  the  Bible  speaks  of  him  and  his 
descendants  after  that  time  as  being  dead,  and  speaks  of 
Adam  before  that  time  as  being  alive.  Notwithstanding 
Adam  had  a  Redeemer,  he  died  in  the  very  sense,  and  at 
the  very  time  God  said  he  would.  God  told  him  what  would 
result  from  his  disobedience,  but  not  one  word  to  forbid  the 
idea  of  a  redemption  from  death.  God  intended  to  redeem 
man  all  the  while,  for  Paul  tells  us  that  the  plan  of  redemp- 
tion was  prepared  before  the  world.  Physical  death  was 
only  produced  by  man's  expulsion  for  his  sin  from  the  tree 


306  SERMONS. 

of  life.  But  in  the  announcements  with  relation  to  the 
future  punishment  of  the  wicked,  it  is  especially  declared 
that  that  punishment  will  be  unending.  A  second  probation 
has  nothing  in  revelation  or  reason  to  recommend  it,  and 
though  entertained  by  a  few  men  in  the  past,  has  been 
tacitly  dropped  by  its  own  advocates  as  untenable.  The 
theory  of  the  Annihilationists  is  the  only  theory  on  this  side 
of  the  question  which  has  any  philosophy  to  support  it, 
and  before  this  series  is  completed  I  will  notice  it  at  some 
length. 

The  proposition  is,  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  in  the 
future  is,  eternal  as  a  matter  of  fact.  The  three  truths  laid 
down  to  establish  the  proposition  are  ist,  man  is  immortal; 
2d,  man  is  placed  in  a  state  of  trial ;  3d,  his  trial  will  terminate 
with  the  present  life.  If  these  three  propositions  be  true, 
eternal  punishment,  whether  right  or  wrong,  must  be  the 
sinner's  portion.  If  the  sinner's  trial  will  end,  and  he  will 
have  no  second  trial,  and  he  will  continue  to  be,  his  punish- 
ment will  be  eternal  as  a  matter  of  fact.  The  eternity  of 
future  punishment  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  sinner's 
immortality,  provided  the  sinner  has  not  the  opportunities  of 
a  second  probation. 

Men  make  themselves  sinners,  and  if  immortal,  immortal 
sinners  ;  the  justice  of  God  requires  sinners  to  be  punished, 
and  if  immortal,  as  a  matter  of  course  they  are  punished 
forever.  If  they  go  into  the  future  state  sinners,  and  immor- 
tal, their  punishment  must  continue  as  long  as  they  exist,  for 
there  is  no  opportunity  of  repentance  there.  It  is  illogical 
and  unfair  to  urge  the  seeming  disproportion  between  the 
length  of  time  during  which  men  sin,  and  the  eternity  during 
which  they  are  punished,  as  an  argument  against  the  eternity 
of  future  punishment.  //  is  not  the  sin  which  is  punished^ 
but  the  sinner.  The  question  resolves  itself  into  the  follow- 
ing clear  proposition  :  If  it  is  right  to  punish  the  sinner  al 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  307 

all,  it  is  right  to  punish  him  forever;  if  it  is  wrong  to  punish 
him  forever,  it  is  wrong  to  punish  him  at  all. 

It  is  eternal  as  a  matter  of  fact.  (Next  Sunday  I  will  show 
you  it  is  eternal  as  a  matter  of  right.) 

The  tremendous  truth  stands  out  upon  the  pages  of  revela- 
tion like  a  mountain  of  consuming  fire,  corroborated  and  es- 
tablished by  bulwarks  of  evidence  indestructible  and  instinct 
with  horror.  There  will  be  a  place  of  future  punishment. 
It  may  be  outer  space  and  darkness,  or  a  place  in  outer 
space  and  darkness.  It  will  not  be  within  the  circle  of  order 
and  light.  Hades,  or  the  intermediate  state,  may  be  simply 
a  state,  and  confined  to  no  especial  place.  If  there  is  a 
place,  the  Bible  rather  confines  it  to  this  world.  After  the 
Judgment  only  are  fallen  angels  and  damned  sinners  to  be 
thrown  into  "  outer  darkness." 

The  Bible  does  not  reveal  a  specific  location  as  the  residence 
of  the  wicked  forever.  Such  a  revelation  would  not  make  the 
motive  for  repentance  drawn  from  future  punishment  any 
stronger,  therefore  it  would  be  superfluous.  And  if  assigned, 
our  acquaintance  with  space  is  too  limited  then  to  know 
where.  Then  a  specific  location  could  not  be  assigned  in 
space  where  there  are,  or  can  be,  no  especial  boundaries.  As 
to  its  character  the  Bible  uses  the  strongest  and  most  expres- 
sive figures  we  can  understand  to  express  its  horror.  It  must 
be  frightful  in  its  horrors.  All  evil  must  be  consigned  there. 
Hell  must  be  a  place  of  dire  disorder  and  dreadful  ruin. 
The  very  idea  of  correspondence  between  the  character  of 
the  place,  and  the  character  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  place, 
suggests  that  hell  is  a  place  of  horror.  And  when  we  re- 
member that  such  an  adaptation  is  characteristic  of  all  the 
works  of  God,  the  suggestion  amounts  to  a  demonstration. 

It  is  called  "outer  darkness."  The  Greek  word  is  used 
in  a  comparative  sense— deeper  darkness,  uttermost  dark- 
ness.    It  may  be  a  dark  and  frightful  sphere,  isolated  from 


308  SERMONS. 

all  worlds,  cursed  of  God,  erratic  and  lawless,  rolling  beyond 
the  confines  of  creation,  with  no  sun  or  star  to  light  up  its 
darkness  and  chase  away  its  infernal  vapors,  with  rivers  and 
oceans  of  liquid  fire,  continents  of  incinerated  rock  and 
scattered  scoriae,  and  rent  with  awful  chasms.  Over  it  the 
lost  may  walk,  and  run,  and  grope,  and  stumble,  and  fall, 
and  climb  forever.  It  may  have  a  strange  power  over  the 
lost  answering  to  gravity,  which  binds  them  to  its  surface, 
and  compels  them  to  dwell  there  through  all  eternity.  It 
may  not  be  this.  It  may  be  a  world  riven  and  shivered  by 
volcanic  fires  and  smothered  gases,  where  lurid  darkness  and 
hazy  light  mingle  in  dusky  shades,  where  smoky  flames  ooze 
from  a  thousand  crannies,  and  flicker  and  flash  from  a 
thousand  fissures,  where  serpents  hiss  in  every  gorge,  and 
goblins  dance  on  every  hill,  and  spectres  creep  from  every 
rock,  and  phantoms  ride  on  every  wind,  and  demons  sit  upon 
every  mountain  —  and  where  redoubtable  horrors  mounted 
upon  fiery  dragons  chase  the  ruined  soul  over  smouldering 
plains,  gloomy  hills,  mountains  dingy,  morasses  foul,  and 
abysms  squalid,  and  chase  it  forever. 

It  may  not  be  this.  It  may  be  a  gloomy,  desolate,  and 
barren  world,  whose  rocks  and  mountains  are  tumbled  into 
anarchy  ;  where  there  are  no  blushing  flowers,  nodding  trees, 
dewy  vales,  grassy  slopes,  and  running  streams;  and  where 
there  are  no  homes,  no  churches,  no  preaching,  no  morality, 
no  religion,  no  friendships,  no  God.  Religion  is  order,  love, 
and  light ;  and  where  it  is  not  all  is  disorder,  enmity,  hate, 
and  night.  The  world  must  be  in  harmony  with  its  inhabi- 
tants. Then  the  best  hell  we  can  promise  is  a  world  of 
ugly  ruins  shrouded  in  Night's  blackest  pall,  where  no  one 
of  the  damned  has  a  friend,  and  filled  with  cursings  and  strifes, 
and  where  all  ranks  and  sexes  are  herded  in  one  promiscuous 
mob  with  foulest  demons,  and  where  every  stinking  cave  is 
inhabited  with  fiend  and  gnashing  ghost,  and  on  whose  black 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  309 

crags  the  ravens  of  despair  sit  and  croak,  and  where  God's 
eternal  justice  plies  his  burning  whip,  and  Remorse  lays  on 
with  his  fiery  thongs — the  flashes  of  whip  and  thongs  their  only 
light,  world  without  end. 

Or  it  may  be  some  huge  cavern  hollowing  out  the  centre 
of  some  blasted,  shattered,  and  God-cursed  planet,  in  which 
the  poison  and  stench  of  ages  have  gathered,  and  condens- 
ing distil  on  the  walls — dimly  lighted  by  sulphurous  torches 
held  by  grimacing  and  howling  fiends,  and  whose  sickly 
flickerings  render  the  darkness  in  all  the  windings,  pits, 
chasms,  and  corners  but  blacker ;  and  where  occasional 
blue  flames  breaking  through  the  fissures  overhead  lick  along 
the  arches,  and  bolts  of  thunder  crash  through  the  grottoes 
and  roar  along  the  labyrinths,  in  which  lost  men  and  fallen 
angels  may  be  driven  from  the  Judgment  Seat,  the  ponderous 
gates  closing  and  locking  behind  them — the  key  fastened  to 
the  girdle  of  God,  and  the  Divine  Omnipotence  installed1  as 
perpetual  sentinel  to -guard  the  way. 

Or  it  may  be  an  unquenchable  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone, 
surrounded  with  precipitous  shores  of  black  and  beetling 
crags,  over  whose  surface  beat  eternal  storms,  the  fiery  waves 
lashing,'  and  dashing,  and  splashing,  and  groaning  around 
all  the  shores — bubbles  dancing  on  every  wave  and  swell, 
and  bursting  emit  fumes  and  smoke  threaded  with  serpent 
flames,  in  whose  ascending  volumes  everlasting  lightnings 
flash  and  cross, —  while  the  unfettered  thunders  of  God  upon 
hell's  infernal  drums  roll  the  eternal  bass  in  hell's  uproar, 
and  beat  time  to  the  ceaseless  groans  of  the  lost. 

The  hell  of  the  Bible  is  horrible  beyond  description,  and 
the  hypotheses  of  this  hour  cannot  exceed  it.  Its  miseries 
are  as  far  beyond  description  as  the  joys  of  heaven  are. 
Be  it  better  or  worse.  Let  us  not  go  there.  Oh,  let  us  not 
go  there  ! 


SERMON   XXIII. 

THE    FUTURE    AND     ETERNAL    PUNISHMENT   OF    THE     WICKED 
(DISCOURSE    III.). 

"  If  thy  hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off:  it  is  better  for  thee  to  enter  into 
life  maimed,  than  having  two  hands  to  go  into  hell,  into  the  fire  that  never 
shall  be  quenched :  where  their  worm  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  is  not 
quenched.  And  if  thy  foot  offend  thee,  cut  it  off:  it  is  better  for  thee  to 
enter  halt  into  life,  than  having  two  feet  to  be  cast  into  hell,  into  the  fire 
that  never  shall  be  quenched  :  where  their  worm  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  is 
not  quenched.  And  if  thine  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out :  it  is  better  for 
thee  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God  with  one  eye,  than  having  two  eyes 
to  be  cast  into  hell  fire  :  where  their  worm  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  is  not 
quenched."— Mark  ix.  43-48. 

THE  word  in  these  verses  translated  hell,  is  Gehenna, 
not  Hades.  The  Hebrew  word  Sheol,  and  its  Greek 
equivalent  Hades,  often  translated  hell  in  our  version,  mean 
the  invisible  world — the  unseen  world  of  spirits — of  spirits 
both  bad  and  good.  They  are  sometimes  used  to  represent  the 
grave — the  invisible  abode  of  dead  bodies, — but  this  use  is  fig- 
urative. Sheol  among  the  Hebrews,  (as  well  as  hades  among 
the  Greeks,)  means  the  invisible  world  of  spirits.  It  was  in 
Sheol,  where  the  patriarchs  are  represented  in  dying  as  being 
"  gathered  to  their  people."  "  Gathered  to  their  people  " 
is  recorded  as  something  distinct  from  burial,  and  as  preced- 
ing burial,  and  this  shows  us  the  meaning  of  sheol,  and 
hades,  and  that  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is 
taught  by  being  recognized,  in  the  Old  Testament.  Anra- 
ham  "gave  up  the  ghost  ....  and  was  gathered  to  his 
people,"   before  his  burial  in  the  cave  of  Machpelah.     It 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  3  I  1 

certainly  could  not  mean  Machpelah,  for  Abraham  had  no 
people  there — Sarah  was  the  only  one  buried  there.  Moc-s 
was  "gathered  unto  his  people,"  and  so  was  Aaro;j,  and 
their  graves  were  solitary.  It  was  in  Sheol  Jacob  expected 
to  meet  his  son.  The  common  name  of  grave  in  the  Hebrew 
is  keber.  In  the  Greek  it  is  taphos,  or  some  equivalent 
word. 

Sheol,  translated  hell,  sometimes  means  that  part  of  the 
invisible  world  in  which  the  wicked  are  punished  till  the 
Judgment,  as  in  the  verse,  "  The  wicked  shall  be  turned  into 
hell  (sheol)  and  all  the  nations  that  forget  God."  It  cer- 
tainly here  cannot  mean  the  grave,  for  those  who  are  not 
wicked,  and  who  do  not  forget  God,  go  to  the  grave,  as  well 
as  the  wicked  and  all  the  nations  that  do  forget  Him.  It 
cannot  simply  mean  the  place  of  spirits  good  and  bad,  for 
then  there  is  no  sense  in  saying  that  the  wicked  and  the  na- 
tions that  forget  God  go  there,  for  certainly  if  all  people  go 
there  after  death  they  will  go.  Speaking  of  the  people  in 
two  classes,  and  saying  that  one  class — the  wicked  class — go 
to  sheol  when  they  die,  implying  that  the  good  class  do  not 
go  there,  shows  that  the  word  here  means  the  place  of  future 
punishment.  It  is  so  used  by  Solomon  in  the  verse,  "  Thou 
shalt  beat  him  (i.  e.,  thy  child)  with  the  rod,  and  shall  deliver 
his  soul  from  hell  "  (sheol) — whether  he  correct  his  child  or 
not  he  will  go  to  the  grave  and  invisible  world.  The  Greek 
equivalent  of  Sheol  is  Hades.  It,  also,  sometimes  means 
the  place  of  future  punishment  for  the  wicked,  as  in  the 
verse,  "  The  rich  man  died,  and  in  hell  (hades)  he  lifted  up 
his  eyes  being  in  torment  " — "  torment"  as  a  state  of  misery. 
John  says,  "  Death  and  hell  (hades)  were  cast  into  the  lake  of 
fire  :  this  is  the  second  death."  This  certainly  means  the 
wicked  only.  Now  the  word  tartaros  is  never  used  but  as  the 
prison  of  the  wicked,  and  is  used  in  2  Peter,  "God  spared 
not  the  angels  that  sinned,  but  cast  them  down  to  hell,  and  de- 


312  SERMONS. 

livered  them  into  chains  of  darkness,  to  be  reserved  unto 
Judgment."  This  is  in  harmony  with  the  other  verses,  and 
corroborates  what  I  have  said  about  them. 

Gehenna  is  the  word  used  in  the  text.  It  is  compounded 
of  two  Hebrew  words  Ge  and  Hinnom — valley  of  Hinnom. 
This  valley  was  southeast  of  Jerusalem,  and  near  the  city. 
In  this  valley  was  an  image  of  Moloch,  Baal,  or  the  Sun,  and 
in  the  valley  the  idolatrous  Jews,  in  the  worship  of  this  god, 
burned  their  children  alive.  This  valley  is  also  called 
Tophet,  from  toph,  meaning  a  drum,  because  the  cries  of  the 
burning  children  were  drowned  by  the  beating  of  drums. 
Josiah,  who  abolished  the  worship  of  Moloch,  to  render  this 
valley  odious  turned  all  the  filth  of  Jerusalem  into  it.  The 
dead  of  animals,  and  the  dead  bodies  of  malefactors,  were 
thrown  into  it.  The  sewers  of  Jerusalem  also  emptied  their 
filthy  contents  into  it.  To  consume  this  filth  a  fire  was  kept 
there  perpetually  burning.  The  valley,  by  a  natural  law  of  all 
ideas,  became  the  symbol  of  cruelty,  misery,  pollution,  and 
of  perpetual  burning.  Thus,  by  a  law  of  language,  its  name 
was  transferred  to  the  place  of  punishment  for  the  wicked, 
and  is  so  used  in  the  text  and  other  places. 

The  Universalists  say  that  when  the  word  is  used  in  the 
Bible  it  always  means  the  valley  of  Hinnom  near  Jerusalem. 
They  have  written  books  to  prove  that  it  has  no  reference  to 
such  a  place  of  future  punishment  for  the  wicked  as  we  claim. 
It  is  a  pet  argument  of  theirs.  Let  us  read  some  of  the 
Scriptures  in  which  Gehenna  is  used  according  to  their  argu- 
ment, and  mark  well  the  consistency,  beauty,  and  sense, 
and  if  the  inspired  writers  are  not  crazy,  craziness  cannot  be 
proven  by  the  productions  of  a  man's  pen.  "  Fear  not  them 
that  kill  the  body,  but  are  not  able  to  kill  the  soul :  but 
rather  fear  him  which  is  able  to  destroy  both  body  and  soul " 
in  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  which  is  near  Jerusalem — "in  hell." 
"  Woe  unto  you,  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites  !  for  ye 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  313 

compass  sea  and  land  to  make  one  proselyte  ;  and  when  he 
is  made,  ye  make  him  twofold  more  the  child"  ("of  hell") 
of  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  near  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  "  than 
yourselves."  "  Ye  serpents,  ye  generation  of  vipers,  how  can 
you  escape  the  damnation  "  ("  of  hell  ")  of  the  valley  of  Hin- 
nom near  Jerusalem  ?  "  The  tongue  is  a  fire,  a  world  of  ini- 
quity :  so  is  the  tongue  among  our  members,  that  it  defileth 
the  whole  body,  and  setteth  on  fire  the  course  of  nature  ;  and 
it  is  set  on  fire"  ("of  hell")  of  the  valley  of  Hinnom  near 
Jerusalem. 

The  word  Gehenna  is  used  twelve  times  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament. It  never  literally  means  the  valley  of  Hinnom.  It 
may  in  a  few  instances  mean  the  misery  of  the  Jewish  nation, 
but  its  general  meaning  is  a  place  of  great  suffering  in 
the  future  for  sinners.  Take  one  verse  already  quoted  : 
"  Fear  not  them  that  kill  the  body,  but  are  not  able  to 
kill  the  soul :  but  rather  fear  him  which  is  able  to  destroy 
both  body  and  soul  in  hell  " — geenne.  The  soul  is  here  dis- 
tinguished from  the  body,  and  is  said  to  be  indestructible  by 
man,  and  is  said  to  live  after  the  body  is  killed,  and  that  God 
only  can  destroy  it,  and  that  God  will  cast  it  with  the  body 
in  Gehenna,  and  after  the  body  being  dead  shows  that  it  will 
be  after  the  resurrection  ;  hence  Gehenna  is  the  abode  of  the 
damned  after  the  Judgment,  as  Hades  is  their  abode  after  the 
death  of  the  body  and  before  the  Judgment.  The  conclu- 
sions from  this  verse,  and  that  the  punishment  is  in  the  future, 
are  more  clearly  taught  in  Luke  :  "  Be  not  afraid  of  them  that 
kill  the  body,  and  after  that  have  no  more  that  they  can  do  ; 
but  fear  him  which,  after  he  hath  killed,  hath  power  to  cast 
into  hell."  The  preposition  '  meta,'  in  the  phrase  "after 
that,"  is  properly  translated — it  always  means  'after' when 
it  governs  the  accusative  as  in  the  text.  It  means  '  with,' 
1  together  with/  when  it  governs  the  genitive. 

Because  the  word  Gehenna  is  compounded  of  Ge  and 
14 


314  SERMONS. 

Hinnom — valley  of  Hinnom — to  make  the  word  when  it  i  i 
used  with  reference  to  the  wicked  apply  to  the  valley  of 
Hinnom  near  Jerusalem,  is  philological  stupidity.  The  in- 
visible is  always  represented  by  words  made  from  the  visible. 
The  word  Paradise  meant  "  originally,  in  Persia,  a  park  or 
pleasure-ground,  well  watered  and  planted,  and  stocked  with 
animals  for  the  chase."  When  Christ  said  to  the  dying 
thief,  "  To-day  thou  shalt  be  with  me  in  paradise,"  do  you 
suppose  he  meant  one  of  those  Persian  gardens  ?  Do  you 
suppose  Paul,  when  he  said — and  I  quote — "  that  he  was 
caught  up  into  Paradise,  and  heard  unspeakable  words,  which 
it  is  not  lawful  for  a  man  to  utter  " — that  is  possible  for  a 
man  to  utter,  as  the  marginal  reading  is — that  he  meant  a 
Persian  garden  ?  If  so,  Persia  is  in  the  third  heaven,  and  is 
"up" — "caught  up" — for  Paul  says  in  two  verses  before, 
"  caught  up  to  the  third  heaven."  Our  word  meaning  heaven 
just  means  the  region  of  air  around  us.  Are  the  damned 
to  be  sent  to  the  valley  of  Hinnom  near  Jerusalem,  and  the 
saved  into  a  garden  in  Persia?  If  one  is  to  be  taken  this 
way  the  other  must.  If  Gehenna  is  not  the  place  of  future 
punishment  for  the  wicked,  we  have  no  heaven  or  Paradise 
either.  The  same  arguments  can  be  used  against  both,  and 
why  they  are  used  in  favor  of  hell,  and  not  heaven,  is  because 
those  who  use  them,  as  a  general  rule,  would  love  to  go  to 
heaven,  but  feel  they  are  not  prepared  for  it,  and  they  want 
to  get  a  future  hell  out  of  the  way.  I  do  not  want  to  offend 
any  one,  but  with  my  convictions  I  can  say  nothing  else,  and 
God  helping  me  I  will  not  go  to  the  Judgment  with  your 
blood  on  my  skirts.  I  feel  it  my  duty,  and  I  know  no  policy 
in  the  pulpit. 

The  existence  of  the  atonement  is  evidence  of  a  state  of 
future  punishment.  I  lay  down  three  propositions  :  i.  Man's 
body  is  mortal.  2.  Man's  soul  is  immortal.  3.  Sin  has  pro- 
duced the  mortality  of  the  body ;  corrupted  the   moral  char- 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  315 

acter  of  the  soul,  but  cannot  destroy  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  Take  these  three  facts  laid  down  as  premises,  and 
think  over  them  but  for  a  moment.  Man's  body  is  mortal — 
who  would  ask  proof  of  it  ?  Man's  soul  is  immortal— all  of 
you  believe  it ;  if  there  is  a  person  here  who  does  not,  then 
he  is  prepared  to  hear  no  argument  whatever  upon  either 
heaven  or  hell.  Sin  produced  the  mortality  of  the  body, 
but  cannot  destroy  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  The  basis 
of  the  soul's  immortality  is  found  in  the  capabilities  of  its 
constitutional  essence — the  reason  is  found  in  God's  will 
thereto  agreeing.  Sin  from  its  nature  affects  the  moral  char- 
acter of  the  soul,  not  its  constitution  and  essence.  What  the 
soul  is  capable  of  having  in  virtue  of  its  constitution  and  es- 
sence independent  of  its  moral  character  sin  cannot  touch  or 
destroy. 

Now  hear  the  conclusion :  If  man's  body  is  mortal,  if 
man's  soul  is  immortal,  and  sin  produced  the  mortality  of 
the  body,  but  cannot  destroy  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and 
there  is  only  a  state  of  eternal  blessedness  in  the  future  for 
departed  spirits — which  is  the  theory  of  one  class  of  Univer- 
salists — all  spirits  must  necessarily  go  there  after  the  death 
of  the  body,  and  we  have  universal  salvation  irrespective  of 
character.  Where,  then,  is  the  necessity  for  a  Saviour,  and 
the  scheme  of  redemption  of  which  he  is  the  subject  ?  There 
is  none.  The  existence  of  the  atonement  is  evidence  there 
is  a  state  of  future  punishment.  If  there  is  no  state  of  future 
punishment,  the  atonement  is  at  once  perceived  to  be  a 
supererogation — a  something  superinduced  upon  the  grand 
system  of  God's  moral  government,  for  the  existence  of 
which  there  can  be  no  sensible  reason  assigned. 

If  it  be  said  by  another  class  of  Universalists  that  there  is 
a  place  of  future  punishment,  but  that  the  punishment  of  the 
wicked  is  limited,  and  that  after  a  time  they  will  all  go  to 
heaven,  the  following  conclusions  inevitably  follow :   1.  Thai 


3l6  SERMONS. 

suffering  can  compensate  for  sin ;  2.  That  suffering  involun- 
tarily endured  can  compensate  for  sin  voluntarily  committed  ; 
3.  That  suffering  can  purify  man's  nature.  These  conclu 
sions  are  unphilosophic  and  unscriptural ;  and  the  result  is 
as  before — there  is  no  necessity  for  Christ  or  the  atonement. 
The  very  existence  of  the  atonement  is  evidence  of  a  state 
of  eternal  future  punishment  for  the  wicked. 

This  punishment  is  eternal  as  a  matter  of  fact,  as  I  have 
shown  ;  and  it  is  eternal  as  a  matter  of  right.  I  can  present 
my  arguments,  because  of  what  has  preceded  them  in  this 
series,  as  briefly  and  compactly  as  I  choose.  As  a  matter 
of  course  I  go  upon  the  doctrine  that  the  true  sense  of  future 
punishment  is  that  of  retribution,  not  that  it  is  disciplinary. 
This  has  been  shown  inferentially  from  every  argument  all 
the  while.  I  may  in  a  future  discourse  touch  upon  it  more 
explicitly. 

The  penalty  must  be  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  guilt. 
This  arises  out  of  the  very  relation  between  penalty  and 
guilt.  The  guilt  of  any  offence  of  man  against  God  is  in 
proportion  to  the  superior  dignity  of  God's  nature.  This 
will  not  do  as  a  general  rule.  It  is  not  true  when  both 
parties  are  finite,  and  nevef  true  with  reference  to  the  acci- 
dental dignity  of  mere  office  and  circumstances,  but  only 
with  reference  to  dignity  of  nature.  It  is  only  true  with  ref- 
erence to  a  finite  creature  and  an  infinite  God,  where  such 
relations  exist  as  do  exist  between  the  infinite  God  and  all 
finite  creatures.  Man's  nature  is  finite.  God's  nature  is  in- 
finite. There  can  be,  therefore,  no  proportion  in  point  of 
dignity  of  nature  between  the  two.  There  can  be  no  propor- 
tion between  two  things  unless  the  one  subtracted  from  the 
other  creates  a  visible  diminution.  Subtract  the  finite  from 
the  infinite,  and  there  is  no  diminution — the  infinite  remains. 
Let  the  infinite  be  your  minuend,  the  finite  your  subtrahend, 
and  the  infinite  is  your  remainder.     Now,  if  the  penalty  is  in 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  3  17 

proportion  to  the  amount  of  guilt,  and  the  guilt  of  man's 
offences  against  God  is  in  proportion  to  the  superior  dignity 
of  God's  nature,  and  between  God  and  man  there  is  no 
proportion  in  point  of  dignity  of  nature  because  God  is  in- 
finite ;  then  the  penalty  of  sin  as  a  matter  of  right  is  infinite, 
in  the  only  direction  in  which  it  can  be,  that  of  duration. 

Again,  the  penalty  of  sin  must  be  in  proportion  to  the 
amount  of  guilt.  The  guilt  of  sin  consists  in  its  being  the 
violation  of  an  obligation ;  therefore  must  be  in  proportion 
to  the  amount  of  obligation  violated.     This  is  also  clear. 

The  whole  question  turns  upon  the  character  of  man's 
obligations  to  God.  These  are  infinite.  God  is  the  Creator, 
Preserver,  Benefactor,  Governor  and  Redeemer  of  men,  infi- 
nitely and  absolutely.  If  man  really  owns,  originates  or 
preserves,  by  any  right  or  power  within  himself,  anything 
subjectively  or  objectively,  just  so  far  as  that  thing  was 
worth  he  would  lack  of  being  under  infinite  obligations  to 
God.  But  where  is  the  such  thing  ?  From  the  nature  of 
God  and  His  relations  to  man,  the  character  and  value  of 
man's  obligations  must  be  estimated  from  the  infinite  nature 
and  plans  of  God,  the  obligee  !  and  not  from  man,  the  obli- 
gor. Man  is  under  infinite  obligations  to  obey  God.  If 
man's  obligation  to  obey  God  is  infinite,  the  guilt  of  diso- 
beying him  is  infinite,  and  if  the  guilt  of  disobeying  Him  is 
infinite,  the  penalty,  as  a  matter  of  right,  is  infinite.  The 
penalty  must  be  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  guilt,  the 
amount  of  guilt  must  be  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  obli- 
gation violated  :  man's  obligations  to  God  are  infinite — the 
penalty,  as  a  matter  of  right,  must  be  infinite. 

Is  eternal  punishment  a  fact,  and  is  it  right  ?  Our  God 
is  a  consuming  fire.  The  capacity  and  power  to  love  shows 
the  capacity  and  power  to  hate.  Those  who  would  say  that 
anger  and  wrath  are  inconsistent  with  the  character  of  God. 
make  God  a  cold  and  chilling  abstraction  unable  to  love.    It 


318  SERMONS. 

you  want  a  God  capable  of  love,  and  infinite  love,  He  must 
be  capable  of  wrath,  and  infinite  wrath.  Indeed,  love  of  the 
Good  and  love  of  good  men  is  anger  of  evil  and  evil  men. 
Anger  is  but  love  itself,  the  burning  reflex  of  Divine  love 
which  warms  and  rejoices  heaven,  kindling  into  a  flame  of 
unquenchable  wrath  for  evil-doers.  The  existence  and  hap- 
piness of  the  righteous  depend  upon  the  integrity  of  God's 
system  and  government,  and  God  loves  the  righteous  so  well 
that  every  sinner  who  would  destroy  the  integrity  and  rec- 
titude of  His  system  and  government,  He  is  angry  with. 
Destroy  God's  government,  and  the  righteous  are  ruined. 
Sin  is  treason  and  the  sinner  is  a  rebel,  and  God  must 
punish  him. 

Away,  you  sickly  sentimentalists  !  While  you  say  God  can- 
not hate,  you  say  He  cannot  love— and  every  argument  you 
use  against  hell,  is  an  argument  against  heaven. 

Is  eternal  punishment  a  fact,  and  is  it  right?  God's  jus- 
tice answers  in  the  affirmative,  and  the  Divine  Mercy  says, 
"  Yes."  After  all  that  Mercy  has  done  to  save  a  sinner,  to 
follow  him  with  its  offers  after  this  probation  would  be  to 
give  a  premium  for  sin.  And  in  the  magnificent  family  of 
God's  attributes,  Mercy  is  the  sweetest,  loveliest,  and  most 
beautiful.  Her  form  is  perfect  symmetry,  her  eyes  a  celes- 
tial blue,  her  locks  are  golden,  her  face  the  fairest  in  heaven, 
and  a  glittering  circlet  of  gold  set  with  sparkling  diamonds, 
and  intertwined  with  leaves  and  flowers  of  fadeless  amaranth, 
rests  upon  her  white  and  pure  brow.  She  is  the  friend  of 
man  ;  and  though  she  leans  upon  the  brawny  arm  of  Justice 
— with  his  dark  brow,  flashing  eye,  and  stalwart  form — yet 
she  is  as  strong  as  he.  A  glance  of  her  eye  has  often  stayed 
his  hand,  and  her  fingers  have  unstrung  his  bow — and  if  an 
arrow  has  flown,  with  leaves  plucked  from  the  tree  of  life 
she  stanches  and  heals  the  wound  in  man  the  arrow  made, 
if  the  man  will  permit  her.     But,  oh  !  she  is  oftener  cursed 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  319 

by  the  man  than  blessed  in  her  mission.  And  in  the  moment 
the  sinner  passes  over  the  river,  holding  in  one  hand  a  list  of 
her  slighted  offers  and  unappreciated  blessings,  with  the  other 
she  wields  the  fiercest  whip  on  the  backs  of  the  damned,  and 
her  voice  is  loudest- and  clearest  in  asserting  the. rightfulness 
of  eternal  punishment — 

"  Bow  ere  the  awful  trumpet  sound, 
And  call  you  to  His  bar  ! 
For  Mercy  knows  the  appointed  bound, 
And  turns  to  Vengeance  there." 

Is  eternal  punishment  a  fact,  and  is  it  right  ? 

The  Bible,  born  in  the  wilderness  and  rocked  by  the  hand 
of  God — Horeb's  fiery  thunders  beating  its  lullabies  on  the 
bare  and  granite  crags,  and  the  red  lightnings  flashing  around 
its  cradle — and  who  was  baptized  by  water  and  blood,  kneel- 
ing at  the  foot  of  the  cross — God's  eternal  Truth  standing 
sponsor — and  who  in  mature  manhood  was  crowned  and 
commissioned  on  the  cliffs  of  Patmos,  the  blue  waters  of  the 
Grecian  sea  laving  their  base,  and  which  rippled  in  music 
around  the  boats  and  oars  of  hero  and  warrior  in  classic 
story, — comes  forth  with  a  casket  in  its  right  hand  and  a 
quiver  in  its  left.  The  casket  was  filled  with  jewels — bright 
and  sparkling  from  the  mines  of  heaven— jewel  promises 
which  it  empties  into  the  lap  of  the  church  ;  and  scatters  on 
our  closet  floors  to  shine,  glitter,  and  light  up  these  temples 
when  we  pray  ;  and  sows  along  the  pathway  of  the  Christian, 
till  the  road  to  heaven,  through  the  gloom  and  night  of  this 
probation,  is  shining  and  paved  with  gems — the  road  itself 
leading  to  a  city  whose  foundations  are  precious  stones. 

The  quiver  is  filled  with  arrows—  poin ted,  barbed,  and 
deadly— fiery  threatenings  which  it  ever  hurls  upon  the  heads 
of  the  wicked,  to  force  them  to  come  into  the  marriage  sup- 
per of  the  Lamb— or,  refusing,  to  beat  in  one  tempestuous 
storm  of  hissing  and  piercing  shafts  upon  their  naked  heads 


320  SERMONS. 

as  they  run  and  scream  over  the  fields  of  perdition.  Nc 
grotto  or  overhanging  rock  can  shelter  from  the  pitiless 
storm,  for  the  bolts  of  God  can  pierce  all  rocks  and  burn 
through  every  defence.  There  is  a  curse  for  every  promise, 
and  both  alike  are  the  Bible's  answer  to  our  question. 

In  Palestine  there  are  two  mountains,  rising  on  steep  and 
rocky  precipices  about  800  feet  high,  on  both  sides  of  a  nar- 
row valley  about  300  yards  wide.  They  are  called  Ebal  and 
Gerizim.  God  commanded  the  children  of  Israel  by  Moses 
when  they  entered  the  promised  land,  that  six  tribes  of  them 
should  stand  upon  Mount  Ebal  and  the  other  six  tribes  on 
Mount  Gerizim,  and  that  the  Levites  should  pronounce  the 
curses  and  blessings  of  the  law — the  tribes  on  Mount  Ebal 
responding  "Amen"  to  the  curses,  the  tribes  on  Mount 
Gerizim  responding  "  Amen "  to  the  blessings.  This  was 
doubtless  the  grandest  ceremony  in  the  history  of  the 
nations.  Mount  Ebal  and  Mount  Gerizim  are  on  every 
page  of  the  Bible,  and  on  every  field  of  Divine  providence, 
and  in  the  valley  between  them  will  sit  the  throne  of  the 
Judgment — and  to  every  blessing  and  every  curse,  all  the 
people  will  say  "Amen,"  and  the  universe  shall  acknowledge 
that  eternal  punishment  is  right.  The  Blessed  Saviour  sat 
down  probably  on  the  eastern  horn  of  the  Hattin,  a  ridge 
between  Tabor  and  Tiberias,  and  preached  his  first  sermon. 

It  was  a  sermon  of  blessings.  "  Blessed  are  the  poor  in 
spirit — Blessed  are  they  that  mourn — Blessed  are  the  meek 
■ — Blessed  are  they  which  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  right- 
eousness— Blessed  are  the  merciful — Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart — Blessed  are  the  peacemakers — Blessed  are  they  which 
are  persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake  ;  " — a  Sermon  of  Bless- 
ings. Certainly  it  would  be  inconsistent  with  Christ's  char- 
acter to  curse.  Would  not  the  Universalist  quote  these  all 
the  day  ?  To  pronounce  curses  would  not  suit  that  kind  face 
and  be  in  harmony  with  his  mission. 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  321 

This  was  his  first  sermon  ;  now  hear  his  last — standing  in 
the  Temple  in  the  presence  of  all  the  people  and  those  who 
had  been  taught  to  regard  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes  as  their 
teachers  and  patterns  of  piety.  "  Woe  unto  you,  Scribes 
and  Pharisees,  hypocrites — Woe  unto  you,  ye  blind  guides — 
ye  fools  and  blind — Woe  unto  you  Scribes — Woe  unto  you, 
thou  blind  Pharisee — ye  serpents,  ye  generation  of  vipers, 
how  can  ye  escape  the  damnation  of  hell  ?  " 

Curses  and  blessings  go  together — Love  incarnate  can 
curse  a  sinner,  Love  incarnate  can  damn  a  sinner,  and  if 
Love  incarnate  can  curse  and  damn  a  sinner  it  can  do  it  for 
all  eternity. 

O  Eternity  !  let  thy  ages  tramp,  thy  cycles  roll,  but  thou 
canst  not  crumble  or  scar  the  walls  of  hell,  or  rust  and  break 
its  locks  or  silver  the  hair  of  God,  who  has  sworn  by  His 
eternal  self  that  the  sinner  shall  die.  The  pendulum  of  thy 
horologe  over  the  gates  of  woe  vibrates  through  all  aeons,  and 
says  "forever,  and  ever" — "forever,  and  ever" — "forever, 
and  ever" — its  sounding  bell  striking  off  the  centuries,  the 
ages — the  cycles.  The  appalling  monotony  of  its  pendulum 
— going — going— going — repeating  still,  "forever,  and  ever" 
—  "forever,  and  ever" — "forever,  and  ever  "  —  O  Eternity! 
God  has  wound  up  thy  clock  and  it  will  never  run  down— 
and  its  tickings  and  beatings  are  heard  by  all  the  lost — "for- 
ever, and  ever  " — "  forever,  and  ever  " — "  forever,  and  ever." 
God  being  my  Judge,  I  would  die  to  save  you  this  day. 

14* 


SERMON  XXIV. 

THE    FUTURE   AND    ETERNAL     PUNISHMENT     OF    THE    WICKED 
(DISCOURSE  IV.). 

"  Then  said  the  king  to  the  servants,  Bind  him  hand  and  foot,  and  take 
him  away,  and  cast  him  into  outer  darkness  ;  there  shall  be  weeping  and 
gnashing  of  teeth." — Matt.  xxii.  13. 

PUNISHMENT  is  suffering  inflicted  by  competent  au- 
thority upon  an  evil-doer  as  a  satisfaction  to  Justice. 
Its  fundamental  and  primary  element  is  that  of  retribution. 
The  ideas  of  the  prevention  of  crime  and  reformation  of  the 
criminal  are  but  secondary  and  incidental,  and  only  admissi- 
ble under  certain  circumstances. 

The  idea  that  utility  and  expediency  are  the  primary  ele- 
ments of  the  punishment  of  the  wicked,  and  which  is  advo- 
cated by  the  Universalists  now,  cannot  be  admitted  at  all. 

1.  It  changes  the  whole  character  of  virtue.  Whatever  is 
expedient  is  virtue,  whatever  is  inexpedient  is  vice.  Accord- 
ing to  this  theory  a  thing  becomes  right  because  its  end  as 
far  as  we  can  see  is  a  utile  one — because  its  end  is  utility. 
According  to  this  theory  an  act  is  wrong  if  it  does  not  tend 
to  utility  and  this  supposes  that  human  ideas  of  utility  never 
vary,  conflict,  and  are  not  relative,  but  that  they  are  uniform, 
universal  in  their  uniformity  and  are  absolute  and  infallible. 

A  thing  may  seem  to  be  of  great  utility  to  me,  and  not  to 
you,  and  the  result  is  that  every  man  is  his  own  standard  of 
what  is  right.  Such  a  theory  upsets  the  whole  system  of 
ethics.     According  to  this  theory  there  is  no  distinction  be- 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  323 

tween  right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil,  as  found  in  the  char- 
acters of  the  things  and  acts  themselves — as  to  the  principles 
and  relations  involved.  Utility  and  expediency  are  the 
touchstones.  Truth  and  Justice  are  forever  annihilated— 
distinctions  hitherto  believed  by  mankind  to  be  such  in  vir- 
tue of  the  immutability  of  the  nature  of  principles  and  rela- 
tions, are  unreal — and  ethics,  jurisprudence,  and  civilization, 
in  fact  all  that  is  essential  to  the  welfare  of  mankind,  are  de- 
stroyed forever.  Men  may  do  what  the  majority  of  their 
fellows  may  suppose  to  be  evil,  that  what  they  selfishly  believe 
to  be  good  may  be  attained.  Infernal  and  universal  anarchy 
is  the  result. 

2.  If  utility  and  expediency  are  the  primary  elements  of 
punishment,  and  not  retribution,  if  crime  deserves  not  prima- 
rily punishment  for  its  own  sake,  then  the  basis  of  demerit 
for  the  proper  apportionment  of  punishment  no  longer  exists, 
and  the  judge  must  punish  the  criminal  according  to  his  own 
ideas  of  what  is  necessary  to  reform  the  criminal  and  to  deter 
other  men,  according  to  his  own  ideas  of  utility  and  expedi- 
ency. 

The  criminal  may  be  considered  so  far  beyond  reforma- 
tion, that  for  general  good  he  may  be  hung  for  stealing  pins  : 
or  upon  another  hypothesis  he  may  be  imprisoned  one  day  for 
murder.  It  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  this  theory  that  a  man 
thought  to  be  capable  of  doing  what  somebody  supposed  to 
be  wrong,  might  be  punished  in  advance  of  his  act,  or  if  con- 
victed, another  man  punished  in  his  place.  The  old  woman, 
in  the  nursery  tale,  who  whipped  her  children  before  she  left 
home,  under  the  supposition  that  they  would  do  wrong  in  her 
absence,  and  the  old  man  who  whipped  John  for  everything 
that  Jesse  did,  were  attached,  and  warmly  and  practically 
as  the  children  doubtless  thought,  to  this  theory.  Even  the 
believer  in  this  theory  himself  must  admit  the  existence  of  in- 
exorable and  immutable  principles  of  justice  lying  behind  and 


324  SERMONS. 

under  his  utilitarian  scheme — and  if  he  admits  this  he  admits 
that  the  true  sense  of  punishment  is  that  of  retribution.  There 
is  a  real  demerit  in  crime,  and  demerit  deserves  retribution. 

The  right  to  punish  a  criminal  because  he  deserves  it,  and 
according  to  the  demerit  of  his  crime,  is  with  God  alone. 
In  some  few  instances  and  of  limited  measure,  God  has  dele- 
gated this  power  to  governments. 

But  man  has  no  right  to  even  avenge  himself — vengeance 
belongs  only  to  God.  Penalty,  punishment  is  necessary  to 
law,  and  retribution  can  only  be  the  true  and  primary  idea 
of  penalty. 

The  idea  of  punishment  as  a  reformatory  and  discipli- 
nary measure  cannot  be  admitted  in  a  government  of  strict 
Justice,  but  only  in  a  government  of  Mercy,  as  a  measure  of 
grace,  of  favor,  in  a  state  of  probation  preceding  judgment. 
It  is  then  confessedly  a  matter  of  favor.  The  scheme  of 
Redemption  is  to  reform  and  save  sinful  man,  during  an  al- 
lotment of  time — which  God  has  given  every  man  for  the 
purpose — and  during  this  allotment  of  time  it  harmonizes 
with  the  scheme  of  redemption,  that  punishment,  though  in 
some  measure  retributory,  should  be  reformatory  and  disci- 
plinary. We  can  all  say  with  Ezra,  "  Our  God  has  punished 
us  less  than  our  iniquities  deserve,"  recognizing  the  basis  of 
punishment,  "  iniquities  deserve,"  and  that  punishments  in 
this  life  have  a  corrective  character.  Take  for  illustration 
the  curses  pronounced  upon  man  in  the  beginning,  where 
punishment,  radically  retributory,  become,  because  of  the  dis- 
ciplinary character,  high  personal  benefits  :  "  Dust  thou  art, 
and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return."  While  the  penalty  of  sin 
included  physical  death  as  a  result,  and  it  was  in  this  sense 
retributory,  but  owing  to  the  conditions  and  circumstances 
involved  in  man's  fall,  physical  death  from  the  earth  stand- 
point became  a  universal  blessing  :  and  the  certainty  of  its 
infliction  is  one  of  the  grandest  disciplinary  measures  in  the 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  325 

government  of  God.  Said  God,  "  Cursed  is  the  ground  for 
thy  sake."  That  man  should  misuse  the  fruit  almost  sponta- 
neously produced  in  Eden  for  his  support,  it  was  a  righteous 
retribution  that  the  ground  hereafter  should  be  cursed  with 
comparative  barrenness,  yet  this  very  barrenness  and  this 
preponderance  of  thistles  and  briers,  inducing  upon  the  part 
of  man  greater  labor,  is  one  of  man's  most  valuable  blessings. 
The  ground  was  not  simply  cursed,  therefore,  in  a  retribu- 
tory  sense  on  account  of  man,  but  because  it  was  then  best 
for  man.  It  was  cursed  for  man's  sake,  that  is,  on  man's 
account  for  man's  good.  We  .get  accustomed  to  reading 
scripture  in  the  light  of  a  popular  interpretation,  and  we  will 
read  it  a  thousand  times  and  see  nothing  but  that  interpre- 
tation in  it.  You  have  read  "Cursed  is  the  ground"  and 
you  have  seen  but  one  meaning  in  it,  and  upon  this  meaning 
great  theories  have  been  erected — yet  the  meaning  we  give 
is  as  natural  a  one  :  we  read  the  Bible  with  only  one  eye — 
take  two  eyes. 

Infidelity  has  subserved  a  good  purpose ;  it  has  driven  the 
church  from  untenable  dogmas  and  opened  inquiry  into  the 
real  character  and  meaning  of  the  word. 

But  punishment  under  a  system  of  justice  and  government 
is  retributory.  Such  a  system  of  government  is  a  natural  one, 
and  such  is  the  natural  idea  of  punishment  judicially  inflicted 
under  such  government,  and  such  will  be  the  punishment  of 
the  wicked  after  the  dispensation  of  grace,  after  probation  — 
and  that  grace  and  probation  end  at  the  close  of  this  life,  I 
have  already  shown  you.  This  punishment  will  be  inflicted 
upon  the  sinner  forever,  as  I  have  shown  you  in  four  previous 
discourses,  from  the  philosophy  of  the  case,  and  the  meaning 
of  the  Scriptures  ;  and  it  will  be  punishment,  not  annihilation. 
The  annihilation  of  even  the  good  would  be  no  reproach 
upon  the  Divine  Justice  and  Goodness,  how  then  could  it  be 
considered  punishment  for  the  wicked  ?     Justice  requires  pun- 


326  SERMONS. 

ishment  for  sin,  as  all  admit,  and  the  Bible  says  that  wicked 
men  and  angels  shall  be  tormented,  day  and  night,  forever 
and  ever.  Upon  the  words  "  Forever  and  ever  "  I  have  al 
ready  treated.  The  Bible  says  the  wicked  shall  die — but 
death  does  not  mean  annihilation.  If  death  and  annihilation 
are  equivalent  terms,  then  life  and  existence,  their  opposition 
words,  respectively  are  equivalent  terms  ;  and  life  and  ex- 
istence are  not  equivalent  terms,  for  many  things  exist  which 
do  not  live.  The  word  is  not  so  used  in  the  Bible  or  in  any 
language  or  Book  in  the  world.  The  Bible  says  the  wicked 
shall  perish,  but  perish  no  more  means  annihilation  than  it 
does  in  the  verse,  "  The  righteous  perisheth  and  no  man 
layeth  it  to  heart."  (Is.  li.  i.)  Indeed  the  Bible  says, 
"Truth  is  perished."  (Jer.  vii.  28.)  The  Bible  says  that 
the  wicked  shall  be  destroyed,  but  God  no  more  means  that 
He  will  annihilate  the  wicked  than  David  meant  that  the 
frogs  annihilated  the  Egyptians  when  he  wrote,  "  He  sent 
frogs  among  them  which  destroyed  them."  (Ps.  lxxviii.  45.) 
The  Bible  says  the  wicked  shall  be  consumed,  but  it  no  more 
means  annihilate  than  it  does  in  the  verse,  "  The  famine 
shall  consume  the  land."  The  onus  probandi,  however,  rests 
upon  the  Annihilationists,  and  till  they  show  that  all  these 
words  mean  something  essentially  different  from  what  they 
mean  in  every  book  and  language  under  the  sun,  we  have 
nothing  to  do  but  pursue  a  plain,  forward  course,  and  simply 
ignore  those  who  wrest  the  truth  to  their  own  destruction ; 
and  by  destruction  I  do  not  mean  annihilation. 

The  Annihilationists  draw  back  with  horror  from  eternal 
punishment  and  claim  that  such  punishment  is  inconsistent 
with  God's  goodness  and  mercy.  They  teach  that  Divine 
Mercy  suggests  annihilation  in  place  of  eternal  punishment. 
Here  they  give  up  the  whole  argument — if  annihilation  is  a 
matter  of  grace,  it  is  not  the  penalty  of  the  law — it  is  not  the 
punishment  sin  deserves  ;  and  yet  they  claim  that  annihilation 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  327 

is  the  penalty  of  the  law.  There  will  not  be,  neither  can  be, 
any  mixture  of  mercy  in  the  penalty  of  the  law.  You  remem- 
ber the  argument,  last  Sabbath  week,  that  the  intensity  of  God's 
anger  with  the  sinner  must  be  in  proportion  to  the  intensity 
of  His  love  of  the  righteous  ;  that  the  capacity  and  power  to 
love  logically  implies  the  capacity  and  power  to  hate. 

God  hates  sin  in  the  same  proportion  He  loves  virtue.  In- 
deed, love  of  the  good  is  of  itself  hatred  of  the  evil.  They 
are  the  same.  The  eternal  punishment  of  the  wicked  is  not 
inconsistent  with  the  divine  goodness.  For  beings  to  be 
happy  they  must  be  virtuous  :  to  be  virtuous  they  must  have 
the  power  of  choice  upon  all  moral  questions.  If  God  did 
not  make  men  capable  of  sinning,  He  could  not  make  them 
capable  of  being  righteous.  If  God  did  not  make  men 
capable  of  sinning  and  therefore  liable  to  punishment,  He 
could  not  make  them  capable  of  being  righteous,  therefore  of 
being  happy. 

The  very  fact  of  eternal  punishment  is  evidence  of  the 
goodness  and  benevolence  of  God.  Especially  so  when  God 
made  men  to  be  happy,  and  they,  in  despite  of  all  God  has 
done  for  them,  make  themselves  miserable.  If  you  remove 
eternal  punishment  out  of  the  way,  you  must  remove  the 
ability  to  choose  good  or  evil— the  foundations  upon  which 
this  doctrine  is  built — and  if  you  remove  this  foundation  you 
rule  out  all  happiness  because  you  rule  all  virtue  out  of  the 
universe. 

After  all  that  Divine  goodness  has  done  for  man,  if  he, 
with  his  eyes  open,  and  as  a  matter  of  choice,  sins  against 
God,  abuses  God's  love,  grieves  God's  Spirit  and  disappoints 
all  the  agencies  God  has  appointed  at  so  much  cost  to  make 
him  happy,  and  then,  after  God  is  willing  to  forgive  him  all, 
refuses  in  his  pride  and  rebellion  to  ask  God  to  do  so,  he 
certainly  does  deserve  eternal  punishment.  If  God  did  not 
punish  such  a  man  He  would  not  deserve,  neither  would  He 


328  SERMONS. 

receive  the  respect  of  good  men.  God  owes  it  to  the  obe- 
dient to  punish  the  disobedient.  If  disobedience  is  not 
punished,  God's  government,  upon  whose  rectitude  and  in- 
tegrity the  happiness  of  the  righteous  depend,  is  destroyed. 
God  actually  cannot  insure  to  the  righteous  eternal  happiness 
without  punishing  the  sinner,  and  the  infinite  importance  of 
law  and  government  must  fix  the  measure  of  the  punishment. 
The  Universalists  argue  from  the  stand-point  of  the  wicked  ; 
but  there  are  two  sides :  take  the  stand-point  of  the  righteous 
as  I  have  just  done.  Now  leave  the  stand-point  of  humanity 
entirely  and  take  the  stand-point  of  Divine  goodness.  Look 
what  God  has  done  for  man.  He  made  him  with  all  his 
senses  and  capacities,  and  made  him  good.  He  made  the 
earth  and  adapted  it  to  man,  and  when  man  sinned  He 
taxed  the  resources  of  the  universe  to  save  him — Son — • 
Spirit — Angels — Gospel — Bible — preachers.  But  man  has 
abused  himself,  the  earth,  and  studies  to  insult  all  means 
given  for  his  good.  Does  he  not  deserve  eternal  punish- 
ment ?  Yes  :  and  from  the  stand-point  of  Divine  goodness 
all  the  righteous  will  argue  when  they  say  "Amen"  and 
heartily  approve  of  the  eternal  damnation  of  every  sinner. 
Their  love  for  God,  their  gratitude  to  Him,  their  own  self- 
interest,  will  make  them  do  it.  Don't  stand,  sinner,  under 
the  curse  of  eternal  punishment  and  say  :  "  Why  did  God 
bring  me  into  the  world  liable  to  such  punishment  ?  "  You 
cannot  throw  the  responsibility  upon  God.  It  is  your  own 
choice.  God's  knowledge  of  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  it  so 
long  as  you  have  the  power  to  be  eternally  happy.  If  you 
want  to  indulge  your  passions  and  avoid  the  trouble  of  being 
religious — do  it,  but  do  not  blame  God.  If  you  want  to 
trample  upon  the  body  of  Jesus,  do  it — you  can  do  other- 
wise, and  God  wants  you  to  do  otherwise  and  has  done 
everything  He  can  to  make  you  do  otherwise,  but  do  not 
blame  God. 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.        '  329 

But  blaming  God  or  not  doing  it — you  will  be  sent  to  Hell 
where  you  ought  to  go  to  suffer  eternal  punishment— and 
every  man  who  loves  God  would  not  have  it  otherwise.  I 
do  assure  you  I  would  not — unless  you  comply  with  God's 
reasonable  terms.  A  hell  of  eternal  torment  is  a  terrible 
fact.  I  have  discussed  and  illustrated  the  subject  from  every 
possible  stand-point  since  these  series  of  sermons  began. 
Various  hypotheses  with  relation  to  the  character  of  the  place 
have  been  given.  Now  there  may  be  no  place — the  soul 
may  simply  be  lost  in  that  outer  darkness  of  which  Christ 
speaks.  The  word  "  lost "  is  a  scriptural  one.  "  But  if 
our  gospel  be  hid,  it  is  hid  to  them  that  are  lost."  In  the 
future  state  the  sinner  will  have  lost  all  the  pleasures  and 
blessings  of  this  life,  and  all  the  pleasures  and  blessings  of  the 
life  to  come.  And  also  he  will  have  lost  his  soul.  When 
God  reared  this  splendid  microcosmical  temple,  as  the  mas- 
terpiece of  His  workmanship,  He  tenanted  it  with  an  intelli- 
gent immortal  soul,  a  jewel  from  His  own  crown,  and  made 
it  not  the  chief  business,  but  the  only  business  of  man, 
to  take  care  of  it.  The  sinner  in  losing  it  will  have  lost 
his  all. 

Take  the  word  "  lost  "  in  its  popular  sense  :  a  ship  at 
sea,  out  of  sight  of  land,  off  the  track  of  commercial  travel, 
in  unknown  latitude.  It  has  lost  its  compass,  lost  its  reck- 
oning. It  seems  to  be  the  tiny  centre  of  a  vast  world  of 
waters  bounded  by  the  sky.  The  sailor  knows  not  which 
way  is  land,  or  where  the  treacherous  sand  or  dangerous 
-ledge  lies  concealed.  They  sail  in  all  directions,  but  to  no 
purpose.  Their  time  of  arrival  has  expired  at  port,  and 
friends  are  waiting,  still  they  are  sailing  they  know  not  where. 
Provisions  and  water  are  gone,  still  they  can  make  no  reck- 
oning. They  are  lost  out  upon  the  great  ocean.  Some 
days  are  calm  :  other  days  the  proud  spirits  of  the  storm, 
starting  out  of  their  mysterious  caves,  walk  the  waters,  and 


330  SERMONS. 

lash  them  into  a  tempest.  Surging  waves  towering  and 
spouting  cataracts  of  foam  in  the  angry  and  rolling  chariot 
of  billowy  cloud  upon  which  the  Storm  King  sits  and  tosses 
from  his  red  hands  the  thunders.  For  a  moment  the  ship, 
with  shivered  masts  and  shredded  canvas,  trembles  upon  the 
towering  crest  of  a  mountain  wave,  then  sinking  rolls  unman- 
ageable from  side  to  side  in  the  trough  of  the  sea.  Here  we 
leave  it  lost  out  at  sea — Ere  this  it  has  gone  down,  and  mer- 
maids stroke  back  the  dank  locks  of  the  sailor  boys  and  lay 
them  out  upon  cold  sea-weeds  along  the  coral  floors  of  their 
caves  and  chant  their  funeral. 

A  child  in  search  of  flowers  wanders  into  the  wilderness,  it 
becomes  bewildered  among  hills,  rocks,  and  ravines,  and 
tries  to  retrace  its  steps,  but  travels  further  the  other  way. 
It  feeds  upon  roots  and  berries  and  sleeps  at  night  upon 
withered  leaves  and  downy  moss.  Wild  beasts  howl  around 
its  little  bed  and  the  owl  hoots  in  the  tree  under  which  it 
rests  and  the  little  wood-cricket  chirps  its  melancholy  triplet 
under  the  rock  at  its  head.  It  rises  morning  after  morning, 
changing  its  bed  every  night  and  travels  for  days  in  a  circuit 
or  further  away.  It  is  lost.  When  hungry  and  tired  and 
worn  with  travel  it  weeps  for  mother.  Mother  is  weeping  at 
home  for  her  lost  darling.  But  heats,  rains,  dews,  hunger, 
and  travel  are  too  much  for  it — it  makes  its  bed  for  the  last 
time,  and  when  morning  comes  it  is  pale,  cold,  and  dead, 
the  birds  warble  above  it  and  the  sunbeams  shine  on  the  dew- 
drops  which  nestle  like  pearls  in  its  flowing  hair.  Lost  child 
— you  have  heard  the  cry,  the  bell,  in  the  winter  night  in  the 
city. 

Now  suppose  there  is  no  Hell.  Suppose  the  soul  in  no 
special  or  particular  place  of  misery,  but  simply  lost — 
flung  by  the  power  of  God  beyond  creation's  boundaries  intc 
immeasurable  wastes  of  night,  where  no  world  ever  rolled 
in  sight,  no  ray  of  light  ever  pencilled  an  image,  no  word  or 


ETERNAL   PUNISHMENT.  331 

sound  ever  wandered,  and  over  whose  expanse  no  angel  ever 
flew.  See  it  traversing  the  darkness,  and  threading  the  inky 
abysms  in  search  of  worlds,  in  search  of  heaven,  in  search  of 
something  where  there  is  nothing  visible,  tangible,  or  ponder- 
able— in  search  of  something  beside  itself. 

World  smiles  to  world,  and  star  shines  to  star,  as  they 
speed  with  lightning  wing  along  their  ethereal  tracks  :  and 
the  erratic  cornet  itself  must  needs  shine  for  company,  as  it 
blazes  in  its  eccentric  flight  through  the  illimitable  ether, 
plying  like  the  weaver's  shuttle  from  apsis  to  apsis— from 
point  to  point— crossing  and  decussating  orbits,  ecliptics  and 
lines,  and  weaving  its  fiery  hair  into  the  plexus  of  universal 
being. 

Saints  commune  with  saints,  angels  with  angels,  and  they 
all  commune  with  God  :  but  this  soul,  sympathetic  and  social 
in  the  very  construction  of  its  being,  its  state  changed  and 
not  its  constitutional  nature,  is  eternally  isolated  from  every- 
thing like  itself,  and  plunged  into  an  ocean  of  darkness  in- 
terminable to  its  flagging  wing,  where  no  sight  or  sound  will 
ever  greet  its  aching  sense,  and  doomed  to  wander  in  the 
pathless  void  while  cycles  roll  and  ages  go  grinding  on.  See 
it  careering  in  its  bewildered  flight.  It  has  crossed  its  track 
a  thousand  times,  and  recrossed  it.  It  is  lost  !  lost !  beyond 
the  power  of  finding.  It  knows  it.  It  feels  it,  but  still  it 
flies,  now  advancing,  now  regressing.  It  turns,  and  turns 
again,  and  lo  !  a  blush  of  dusky  light— a  stupendous  arch  of 
massive  bend,  and  a  temple  grand  in  its  darkness,  with  dusky 
gates  and  dingy  towers,  greets  its  vision.  It  fain  would  scale 
the  loftiest  turret— it  soars,  it  hovers,  but  oh,  horror  of  hor- 
rors !  temple,  gates,  and  towers  melt  away  into  darker  gloom, 
and  it  is  left  in  awful  loneliness  hanging  in  agony,  but  a 
speck  of  quivering  terror  in  untenanted  and  unilluminated 
space.  Shall  it  ascend,  descend,  or  move  off  on  a  level  ? 
There  are  no  ups  or  downs,  or  recumbent  planes  where  there 


332  SERMONS. 

is  nothing.  If  ups,  and  downs,  and  planes  there  are,  it  may- 
soar  up — up — up — forever,  or  dip  down — down — down — 
forever,  or  rush  on — on — on — forever — it  is  still,  and  through 
all  eternity  a  lost  soul. 

See  it — yonder — yonder — yonder.  It  goes  that  way  : 
LOST  !  lost  !  lost  /  los-t.  It  comes  this  way,  shrieking 
lost!  lost!  lost!  till  our  hearts  stand  still  with  horror. 
Scream  on,  and  fly  on,  cursed  and  ruined  spirit  :  no  battle  - 
mented  walls  of  towering  jasper  will  ever  meet  thy  gaze,  or 
furnish  a  resting-place  for  thy  weary  pinion.  Fly  on,  lost 
soul,  forever,  no  angel  of  mercy  will  ever  cross  thy  solitary 
way,  or  overtake  thee  in  thy  wanderings.  Lost  spirits  !  black- 
ened with  the  curse  of  thy  God,  fly  on,  and  repeat  in  de- 
spairing cry  the  chorus  of  thine  own  horrible  death-march, 
u  lost,  lost,''1  where  no  echoes  will  ever  mock  thy  misery. 
Immortal  soul  !  lost  in  boundless,  bottomless,  infinite  dark- 
ness, fly  on,  thou  shalt  never  find  company  till  the  ghost  of 
eternity  will  greet  you  over  the  grave  of  God,  and  thou  shalt 
never  find  rest  till  thou  art  able  to  fold  thy  wings  on  the 
gravestone  of  thy  Maker. 

And  the  Judge  will  say  to  the  angels  :  "  Bind  him  hand 
and  foot  and  take  him  away  and  cast  him  into  outer  dark- 
ness :  there  shall  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth."  (Matt, 
xxii.  13.) 


SERMON   XXV. 

"NOW  WE    SEE   THROUGH    A    GLASS,    DARKLY." 

"  For  Now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly  ;  but  then  face  to  face  ;  no* 
I  know  in  part ;  but  then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known."— i  Cor. 
xiii.  12. 


T 


HE  word  translated  in  the  text  "glass  "  in  the  original 
Greek  means  a  mirror,  which  was  made  in  those 
clays  of  metal  and  polished,  not  of  glass,  and  compared  with 
glass  was  an  inferior  reflector.  Substitute  the  idea  of  a 
polished  metallic  mirror  for  that  of  a  looking-glass,  and  we 
have  the  meaning  and  strength  of  the  text.  The  text  in- 
cludes two  antitheses,  or  anti-theses.  "For  now  we  see 
through  a  glass,  darkly  ;  but  then  face  to  face,"  this  is  one  : 
"  Now  I  know  in  part ;  but  then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I 
am  known,"  this  is  the  second. 

I.  The  first  thesis  of  both  antitheses,  reads  thus  :  Now  we 
see  through  a  glass,  darkly-*ow  I  know  in  part."  Their 
sense  is,  that  invisible,  spiritual,  and  heavenly  things,  are 
"  now,"  in  this  life  with  reference  to  us  involved  in  the  deep- 
est mystery.  Approach  the  system  of  revealed  religion.  The 
very  first  truth  which  stands  prominently  upon  its  pages,  as 
its  central  fact,  Royal  Head,  the  intelligent  sensonum,  is 
that  tremendous  and  mysterious  entity  we  call  God— eternal 
in  space,  eternal  in  duration,  a  unity  in  its  essence,  a  trinity 
in  its  personality,  and  infinite  in  its  perfections. 

Christianity  is  a  mystery.  A  redemptive  and  compensa- 
tory scheme,  bursting  from  the  mind  of  God  as  His  master- 
piece;  bearing  in  artistic  and  resplendent  delineation  the 


334  SERMONS. 

symmetrical  image  of  its  perfect  Author,  meeting  the  de- 
mands of  its  moral  law,  satisfying  the  perfections  of  God, 
pardoning  and  purifying  the  sinner,  readjusting  the  sundered 
and  distracted  relations  of  universal  being,  restoring  the 
unity  and  equilibrium  of  God's  system,  adapting  itself  to  all 
peculiarities  of  mind,  soul,  nature,  character,  and  condition 
of  all  men  of  all  nations  and  ages,  could  not  with  relation  to 
the  human  mind  in  this  life,  but  be  profoundly  mysterious. 

Experimental  religion  is  a  mystery.  Christ  could  not 
explain  so  as  to  be  understood  by  the  carnal  mind:  "The 
wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the  sound 
thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh,  or  whither  it 
goeth  ;  so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit."  You  may 
have  felt  the  happiness  it  imparts  flash  along  the  fibres  of  your 
spiritual  nature  like  electric  fire  ;  you  may  have  felt  it  thrill 
your  heart  with  the  richest  music,  till  you  stood  jubilant  upon 
every  tuneful  string  of  a  soul  replete  with  harmony  and 
instinct  with  bliss — but  its  nature,  its  mode  of  communica- 
tion, and  attending  phenomena,  constituted  a  mystery  at  once 
incomprehensible  and  unutterable. 

The  portentous  future  is  shrouded  in  mystery.  We  walk 
upon  the  verge  of  an  awful  darkness  about  which  we 
know  but  little.  O  great  future  !  interminable,  inconceiva- 
ble, unknown  !  What  are  your  employments,  your  joys,  your 
mysteries  ?  We  cannot  cease  to  be,  we  do  not  want  to  be 
annihilated.  God  has  kindled  a  star  of  future  existence 
upon  the  rocky  shores  of  time,  and  throwing  back  its  beams 
it  lightens  up  our  journey.  But  what  is  beyond?  Confound- 
ing and  impenetrable  darkness. 

But  let  us  discuss  the  topic  deducible  from  the  theses 
under  consideration  in  its  especial  application  to  the  system 
of  revealed  religion.  The  system  of  revealed  religion  has 
its  mysteries — mysteries  inexplicable  and  profound ;  mys- 
teries whose  depths   no  human   mind   can   fathom,   whose 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  335 

occult  and  intricate  mazes  no  human  eye  can  trace  ;  mys- 
teries upon  the  brink  of  which  the  soul  pauses  awe-stricken, 
as  if  brought  up  upon  the  verge  of  some  fearful  abyss  ; 
mysteries  within  whose  hallowed  precincts  we  dare  not  ven- 
ture. The  fiat  of  Jehovah  has  marked  out  the  boundaries, 
and  an  irreversible  decree  flashes  like  the  sentinel  flames  of 
Eden  to  guard  what  God  claims  as  His  own  secrets.  Be- 
cause the  system  of  revealed  religion  has  its  mysteries,  infi 
delity  pronounces  it  false.  The  argument  is  that  mystery  is 
fatal  to  the  very  idea  of  a  revelation — that  mystery  and  rev- 
elation are  contradictory  terms. 

Hear  the  following  opposition  arguments  : 

1.  If  that  which  the  system  of  revealed  religion  professes 
to  reveal  is  involved  in  a  mystery,  so  that  man,  for  whose 
benefit  the  revelation  is  intended,  cannot  possibly  understand 
it,  then  the  objection  is  valid.  But  what  it  professes  to 
reveal  is  clear  to  every  intelligent  and  enlightened  mind.  It 
professes  to  reveal  facts,  whose  relations  to  infinity  in  many 
instances  render  the  modes  of  their  existence  and  production 
necessarily  incomprehensible  to  us.  Our  minds  are  finite, 
therefore  they  are  only  capable  of  originating  and  entertain- 
ing finite  ideas.  The  mind  cannot  originate  an  idea  trans- 
cending in  its  nature,  extent,  and  modifications  its  own 
powers  ;  neither  can  it  entertain  such  an  idea.  It  cannot 
comprehend  an  idea  superior  in  its  capacity  to  one  it  can 
originate.  I  know  that  few  men  ever  tax  their  minds  to 
their  utmost  capacity  for  original  conception,  but  I  repeat, 
the  mind  cannot  comprehend  an  idea  superior  in  its  capacity 
to  one  it  is  able  to  originate.  An  attempt,  therefore,  upon 
the  part  of  the  system  of  revealed  religion  to  reveal  any 
mode  of  existence  and  causation  which  is  related  to  the  in- 
finite, and  which  cannot  from  that  fact  be  understood  by  the 
mind,  would  be  to  introduce  upon  its  pages  a  mystery  of  such 
a  nature  as  actually  to  contradict  its  character  as  a  revelation. 


336  SERMONS. 

The  mysteries  of  revealed  religion  are  the  mysteries  of 
modes,  not  of  facts  ;  but  the  revelations  of  revealed  religion 
are  the  revelations  of  facts,  not  of  modes.  And  there  cer- 
tainly is  a  distinction  between  mystery  as  to  a  fact,  and  mys- 
tery as  to  a  mode  :  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  a  God  may 
be  clear,  but  the  mode  of  His  existence  is  necessarily  incom- 
prehensible to  us.  The  reasons  of  all  the  mysteries  of 
revealed  religion  are  found  in  the  relations  of  its  facts,  and 
the  constitutional  inability  of  the  intellect  to  comprehend 
these  relations.  A  moment's  reflection  is  sufficient  to  con- 
vince every  man  that  the  origin,  nature,  attributes,  adjuncts, 
relations,  subjects,  designs,  and  ends  of  revealed  religion 
are  such,  that  its  facts  are  compelled  from  necessity  to  stand 
related  to  the  supernatural  and  infinite.  If  the  objector 
admits  this,  and  he  is  compelled  to  do  so,  then,  let  him  urge 
the  mysteries  of  revealed  religion  as  an  evidence  of  its 
falsity,  and  he  is  logically  driven  to  the  alternative  that 
nothing  is  true  that  sustains  any  relation  to  the  infinite,  or 
that -the  finite  mind  of  man  is  equal  in  discovering  and  inves- 
tigating power  to  all  the  difficulties  involved  in  the  nature 
and  existence  of  any  truth,  however  intimate  in  its  relations 
to  the  Great  Infinite  it  may  be,  either  in  being  or  principle. 
The  objector  must  renounce  his  objection  or  he  is  neces- 
sarily impaled  upon  one  of  the  horns  of  this  logical  dilemma. 

2.  Revealed  religion  contains  a  sufficiency  to  promote  the 
ends  for  which  it  was  intended,  and  that  is  enough.  If  the 
revelations  of  its  facts,  without  the  revelation  of  its  modes, 
is  sufficient  to  accomplish  the  salvation  of  man,  the  ostensi- 
ble and  positive  design  it  was  intended  to  effectuate,  nothing 
more  can  be  demanded  of  it  in  all  reason.  To  require  more 
would  be  as  unreasonable  as  to  require  Geology  to  teach  us 
Chemistry,  Chemistry  to  teach  us  History,  History  to  teach 
us  Philology,  01  any  one  of  them  to  teach  us  all  the  others, 
or  whatever  caprice  and  curiosity  may  deem  fit  to  dictate, 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  337 

or  to  be  condemned  as  false.  The  revelations  of  revealed 
religion  are  sufficient  for  life  and  salvation.  Ask  the  mar- 
tyrs. Ask  the  splendid  examples  of  Christian  piety  which 
have  adorned  every  age  of  the  world,  and  glitter  like  gems 
of  the  purest  water  upon  every  page  in  history.  Ask  those 
lofty  specimens  of  Christian  character  formed  amid  the  fires 
of  affliction,  and  perfected  in  the  crucible  of  human  trial. 
Ask  the  expiring  saint  as  he  dies  with  a  smile  of  triumph  and 
a  shout  of  victory.  If  the  revelations  of  revealed  religion 
are  sufficient  for  life  and  salvation,  a  further  revelation  would 
be  a  supererogation  ;  and  a  supererogation  in  any  pait  of 
the  scheme  of  religion  by  Divine  appointment,  would  be 
fatal  to  the  idea  of  Divine  Perfection. 

3.  If  it  is  true  that  the  mysteries  upon  the  pages  of 
revealed  religion  is  evidence  that  the  whole  system  is  false, 
it  is  true  as  a  general  principle.  It  is  axiomatic  that  nothing 
is  true  in  an  especial  application,  unless  it  is  true  in  all 
applications  under  the  same  conditions.  Therefore  as  a 
result,  many  things  may  be  both  true  and  false.  The  knowl- 
edge of  some  men  is  superior  to  the  knowledge  of  some 
other  men.  To  those  of  superior  knowledge  a  certain  thing 
may  be  clear  and  properly  understood,  hence  with  reference 
to  them  it  is  a  truth.  To  those  of  less  knowledge  the  same 
thing  may  be  obscured  in  mystery,  hence  with  reference  to 
them  it  is  false.  Such  an  absurd  conclusion  is  a  logical  anni- 
hilation of  the  objection. 

4.  If  the  mysteries  upon  the  pages  of  revealed  religion  is 
evidence  that  the  whole  system  is  false,  and  it  is  axiomatic 
that  nothing  is  true  in  an  especial  application  unless  it  is 
true  in  all  applications  under  the  same  conditions,  everything 
which  involves  a  mystery  is  false.  Then  all  nature  is  false, 
and  what  the  world  calls  natural  religion  is  false  too.  I  use 
the  phrases  "revealed  religion,"  and  "natural  religion," 
according   to    their   popular    acceptation;    really  I   do    not 

IS 


338  SERMONS. 

believe  in  the  existence  of  any  such  thing  as  natural  religion  , 
I  do  not  believe  a  system  of  religion  can  be  deduced  from 
reason  or  nature,  and  if  it  could  I  do  not  believe  the  human 
mind  could  do  it.  But  proceeding  upon  their  hypothesis, 
they  extol  the  revelations  of  the  book  of  nature  as  complete, 
consistent,  and  clear ;  and  condemn  the  revelations  of  the 
book  of  revealed  religion  as  mysterious  and  difficult.  Yet, 
nature  has  mysteries  as  profound  and  inexplicable  as  revealed 
religion. 

Do  you  understand  celestial,  atmospheric,  and  geological 
phenomena  ?  Do  you  understand  the  philosophy  of  motion, 
and  how  it  is  communicated  from  one  body  to  another  ?  Do 
you  understand  the  laws  governing  the  equilibrium  of  forces 
essential  to  the  existence  and  architectural  grandeur  of  God's 
universe — its  worlds,  atoms,  fluids,  essences,  yea,  life  itself? 
Do  you  understand  the  philosophic,  original,  and  executive 
causes  of  the  great  facts  of  gravitation,  attraction,  repulsion, 
and  impulsion  ?  In  every  assigned  cause  is  the  quantum  of 
inherent  power,  necessary  to  produce  the  effect,  visible  ? 
Matter,  motion,  force,  time,  and  space,  have  furnished 
themes  for  elaborate  controversies  among  the  philosophic 
and  literary  in  every  age  ;  which  would  not  be  if  the  revela- 
tions of  the  book  of  nature  were  complete,  consistent,  and 
clear. 

What  are  the  laws  governing  chemical  affinities,  combina- 
tion, and  decomposition  ?  What  are  the  laws  of  organic  life 
and  growth  ?  By  what  wondrous  alchemy  are  the  particles  of 
matter  transmitted  into  the  green  leaf?  Why  does  one  little 
seed  and  plant  produce  wheat,  another  barley,  and  another 
corn  ? — Why  not  '*  chance  ....  of  some  other  grain  ?  " 
What  is  the  philosophy  of  color  ?  How  is  it  that  apparently 
the  same  particles  of  matter  are  formed  into  the  fair  color  of 
the  fragrant  Jessamine  and  the  darker  and  more  variegated 
hues  of  the  beautiful  rose  ?     Cast  a  seed  in  the  ground  ;  it 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  339 

enlarges  ;  in  a  few  days  the  germ  sends  up  a  stem  and  down  a 
root ;  the  radicles  imbibe  the  nutriment,  and  it  mounts  up- 
ward as  if  by  magic ;  soon  its  long  conical  blades  drop  in  ver- 
dant curves  to  the  earth,  and  the  flower  upon  its  top  drops  a 
dust  upon  its  silken  flower  on  its  side,  and  a  long  ear  ot 
golden  corn  rewards  the  farmer's  toil — every  grain  possessing 
the  reproductive  power  of  the  first.       Do  you  understand  it  ? 

If  you  confess  ignorance  of  the  laws  of  organic  life,  what 
is  the  sum  of  your  knowledge  of  the  higher  laws  of  animal 
life?  Do  you  understand  the  wonderful  mechanism  and 
economy  of  your  own  bodies  ?  The  laws  of  muscular  mo- 
tion— the  authority  of  the  will  over  the  organs  of  motion  ? 
The  laws  governing  the  dilatations  and  contractions  of  the 
heart — governing  the  secretions  and  circulation  of  the  fluids  ? 
This  body  is  a  chemical  laboratory.  Here  the  elements,  sub- 
stances, and  gases  of  nature  are  combined,  decomposed,  elim- 
inated and  transmuted,  and  a  magnificent  system  of  organized 
and  embodied  functions  is  kept  in  active  and  harmonious  exis- 
tence for  fourscore  years.  The  anatomists  and  physiologists 
themselves,  are  confounded.  Where  is  your  soul  ?  How 
do  you  grow  ?  How  do  you  live  ?  How  do  you  die  ?  How 
do  you  think  ?  How  do  you  reason  ?  How  are  perceptions 
produced  ?  Explain  your  consciousness  of  the  present,  your 
memory  of  the  past,  your  anticipations  of  the  future.  Why, 
and  how,  are  you  affected  by  the  beautiful,  sublime,  and 
pathetic  ?  Why  do  the  memories  of  the  old  family-altar 
bring  a  tear  to  your  eye  ? 

The  microcosm,  man,  is  the  greatest  mystery  in  the  uni- 
verse. His  own  existence  and  nature,  involving  such  powers 
as  they  do,  perplex  and  confound  his  own  understanding. 
Left  to  the  light  of  nature,  without  the  revelations  of  revealed 
religion,  one  makes  him  a  mere  machine  in  the  hands  of 
an  inexorable  fatality  ;  another  denies  him  a  soul  and  makes 
him  a  material  clod  j  others  refine  and  compound  him  till  he 


340  SERMONS. 

is  lost  beyond  self-recognition,  till  he  only  exists  in  the  ideal, 
and  not  in  the  actual  life.  One  deifies,  another  canonizes 
him,  and  another  degrades  him.  The  Theophilanthropist  in- 
vests his  reason  with  sovereignty  and  worships  him  ;  otherr 
bind  him  hand  and  foot  with  chains  of  appetite  and  cast  him 
into  the  dungeons  of  sin,  an  accursed  reprobate.  One  makes 
him  immortal ;  another  makes  this  little  transitory  life  the 
whole  of  his  existence,  death  the  consummation  of  his  aspi- 
rations and  hopes,  and  the  grave  his  eternal  home.  In  fact 
the  world  is  indebted  for  its  knowledge  of  the  leading  princi- 
ples of  Anthropology  and  its  kindred  sciences,  to  the  Bible. 

All  nature,  organic  and  inorganic ;  animate  and  inanimate  ; 
terrestrial  and  celestial ;  solid,  liquid,  aerial  and  ethereal,  is 
teeming  with  wonders  and  crowded  with  mysteries.  If  the 
mysteries  of  revealed  religion  is  evidence  that  the  system  is 
false,  according  to  the  principles  already  laid  down,  nature  is 
false  too,  and  any  system  of  natural  religion  which  is  claimed 
to  have  been  deduced  from  it  must  be  false  also.  The 
objector  is  compelled  to  renounce  his  objection  to  revealed 
religion,  or  he  must  also  renounce  what  he  is  pleased  to  term 
his  natural  religion,  and  take  up  his  abode  in  the  darkest  cave 
in  the  hell  of  atheism.  Between  the  renunciation  of  revealed 
religion  and  a  Godless,  soulless,  beingless,  atheism,  there  is 
nothing — if  he  let  go  one,  he  falls  into  the  other.  Hold  fast 
to  your  religion. 

But  every  doctrine  and  fact  of  revealed  religion  ought  to 
be  as  demonstrable  and  intelligible  as  pure  mathematics. 
Well  apply  the  same  rule  in  nature  and  natural  religion  too  ; 
the  same  reason  which  makes  it  essentially  proper  in  one, 
makes  it  essentially  proper  in  the  other.  But  admit  this  for 
the  sake  of  argument.  Asymptotical  curves  when  extend- 
ed continually  approach,  but  never  meet.  This  is  demonstra- 
ble, but  I  venture  to  say  that  it  is  not  intelligible  to  any 
man  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.     Express  the  third  of  one 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  341 

decimally,  adding  a  cipher  to  the  remainder  and  continuing 
the  division,  it  is  three  into  ten  three  times  and  one  over, 
world  without  end.  Here  we  have  a  number  eternally  di- 
vided by  three,  and  losing  two-thirds  of  itself  forever,  with- 
out the  possibility  of  ever  exhausting  it.  This  also  demon- 
strative, but  is  it  intelligible  ?  God  demands  no  more  of  us 
in  religion  than  He  does  in  anything  else.  Therefore  let  us 
act  with  reference  to  it  as  we  do  in  everything  else. 

The  mysteries  of  revealed  religion,  in  all  cases,  have  a 
reason  for  their  existence,  which  neither  nature  nor  science 
have  in  many  instances  for  their  mysteries.  Many  things  in 
nature  and  science  are  mysterious  which  would  be  useful 
and  proper  to  us  if  we  knew  them  ;  nothing  of  this  character 
is  mysterious  in  revealed  religion.  Whatever  is  mysterious 
in  revealed  religion,  is  also  mysterious  in  nature.  Nature 
reveals  nothing  which  is  not  revealed  in  the  Bible ;  yet  the 
Bible  reveals  many  things  about  which  nature  is  as  dumb  as 
death  and  as  silent  as  the  grave.  If  the  argument  of  the  ob- 
jector is  worth  anything  it  turns  with  full  force  against  the 
claims  of  what  he  calls  natural  religion. 

Strange  !  men  will  lay  hold  upon  the  most  frivolous  and 
inconsistent  objections,  and  stubbornly  maintain  them,  if  they 
cast  but  a  shadow  of  a  doubt  upon  the  truth  of  Revelation. 
They  have  resorted  to  the  most  glaring  sophisms,  and  with 
dogged  and  infernal  tact  have  employed  the  most  wily  and 
insinuating  diplomacy,  to  array  nature  against  the  truths  of 
revealed  religion ;  but  insulted  nature  proudly  hurled  back 
their  empty  honors,  and  tore  to  shreds  the  garment  of  infal- 
libility, with  which  they  would  clothe  her,  and  meekly  sitting 
at  the  feet  of  Revelation  acknowledges  its  supremacy,  and 
thundered  its  truth  throughout  all  her  departments.  They 
endeavored  to  enlist  nature's  sciences — nature's  daughters 
• — in  antagonism  to  the  Revelations  of  the  Word  of  God; 
but  they  declined  the  contest,  and  now,  hand  in  hand,  they 


342  SERMONS. 

stand  in  perfect  harmony  around  Revelation,  corroborating 
its  truths,  and  illustrating  its  teachings. 

When  Astronomy,  crowned  in  beauty,  came  tripping  down 
the  heavens,  her  astral  train  borne  by  cherubs,  and  sweeping 
in  queenly  magnificence  amidst  the  misty  ranges  of  the 
nebulae,  they  rushed  to  worship  her,  she  repelled  them — 
"Worship  God" — and  sheaving  the  beams  of  light,  and 
plucking  the  stars  of  heaven,  she  wove  a  garland  of  stellar 
beauties,  and  to  their  amazement  and  consternation  ap- 
proached Revelation,  crowned  its  brow  and  proclaimed  it 
true. 

Zoology,  next  in  turn,  was  called  upon  to  oppose  the  in- 
creasing power  of  revealed  truth.  Homo  was  the  genus,  and 
the  various  types  of  the  human  race  were  the  different  spe- 
cies, and  each  species  had  a  different  origin.  The  unity  of  the 
human  species,  and  a  common  origin,  the  doctrine  of  Moses, 
was  denounced  as  false,  and  the  decline  and  final  extinction 
of  revealed  religion  was  predicted,  and  confidently  expected. 
But  in  the  hour  of  conflict,  Zoology,  itself,  stepped  out  of  its 
shambles,  through  the  weight  of  its  testimony  and  influence 
into  the  scales  of  public  faith,  and  established  the  truth  of 
Bible  story.  Geology  was  their  last  resort,  and  its  opposi- 
tion was  declared  to  be  formidable  and  fatal.  But  this,  the 
youngest  daughter  of  nature,  crowned  with  spar  and  san- 
dalled with  granite,  came  up  from  her  caverns  and  piled  her 
fauna  and  flora,  her  rocks  and  fossils  at  the  foot  of  Revela- 
tion's throne,  and  pronounced  its  truth.  Revealed  Religion 
is  supreme,  and  nature  and  her  sciences  are  but  its  witnesses. 

Many  random  and  careless  readers  and  thinkers,  however, 
who  read  the  Bible  only  in  their  leisure  hours  to  fill  up  the 
interstices  of  their  time,  and  never  devoted  an  hour  of  pa- 
tient thought  to  the  study  of  revealed  religion  in  their  lives, 
have  pronounced  many  things  mysterious  in  the  system  which 
God  intended  should  be  understood.     Men  ought  to  study 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  343 

the  system  of  revealed  religion.  Study  it  like  they  study 
mathematics,  logic,  and  languages.  Study  it  with  every 
capability  with  which  they  are  endowed.  Study  it  till  the 
mind  arrives  at  its  highest  power  in  the  scale  of  its  polarity 
— that  point  at  which  it  forgets  every  other  thing,  and  is  able 
to  pour  the  full  strength  of  its  aggregated  energies  into  it — 
flashing,  and  burning,  and  penetrating,  in  their  intellectual 
plenipotence.  They  ought  not  to  expect  to  understand, 
without  study,  the  subjects  and  facts  of  this  the  grandest  of 
systems  ;  a  system  comprising  within  its  boundaries  the  in- 
finite and  the  finite,  God  and  man,  heaven  and  hell,  time 
and  eternity — and  which  of  itself  is  the  "  wisdom  of  God," 
the  Minerva  of  heaven. 

To  investigate  the  truth  and  claims  of  revealed  religion,  to 
interpret  its  doctrines,  and  understand  its  requirements,  is 
the  work  and  province  of  human  reason.  There  are  no  such 
fields  in  the  universe  to  exercise  the  reason,  as  our  religion 
affords.  New  beauties  break,  and  break  forever,  upon  the 
vision,  as  the  student  advances.  It  is  adapted  to  all  types 
and  varieties  of  intellect,  all  grades  and  degrees  of  intellectual 
power.  Its  metaphysics  are  the  highest,  its  philosophy  the 
profoundest,  its  fields  the  broadest,  its  subjects  the  sublimest, 
its  principles  and  pursuits  the  most  ennobling.  Our  religion 
does  not  ignore  reason,  but  like  every  other  subject  of  study 
— and  to  no  greater  degree — it  requires  the  exercise  of  rea- 
son within  the  boundaries  of  certain  defined  limitations.  A 
few  safe  rules  of  limitation  may  be  laid  down  as  governing 
the  exercise  of  reason  in  the  study  of  revealed  religion  in 
common  with  every  other  subject  of  study. 

1.  The  reasoner  must  remember  that  his  intellect  is  finite, 
therefore  not  able  to  discover,  investigate,  and  demonstrate 
all  the  principles  and  relations  of  those  truths  which  are  re- 
lated in  their  existence  and  causation  to  the  infinite. 

2.  The  reasoner  must  keep  in  mind  that  reason  is  based 


344  SERMONS. 

upon  comparison.  That  is,  reasoning  consists  in  comparing 
an  unknown  truth  with  a  known  truth,  to  investigate  the 
qualities  of  the  unknown.  It  always  implies  two  things,  the 
unknown  about  which  he  reasons,  and  the  known  with  which 
he  compares  it. 

3.  His  known  truth  with  which  he  compares  his  unknown 
truth,  must  sustain  a  definable  and  specific  proportion  to  the 
unknown.  And  there  is  no  proportion  between  any  two 
things,  unless  when  the  one  is  taken  from  the  other  or  added 
to  it,  it  creates  a  corresponding  change  in  the  other,  equiva- 
lent to  a  change  effected  in  any  mathematical  quantity  when 
some  number  is  taken  from  it  or  added  to  it. 

4.  The  things  compared  must  be  of  the  same  nature.  I 
will  use  Mr.  Watson's  illustration :  By  comparing  body  with 
body  we  can  very  truthfully  say,  "  two  cannot  occupy  the 
same  place  at  the  same  time."  But  we  cannot  say  this  about 
spirits,  for  we  do  not  know  what  relation  they  have  to  space, 
or  each  other.  Body  must  be  compared  with  body,  and 
spirit  with  spirit. 

5.  The  specific  qualities  involved  in  the  comparison  must 
be  the  same.  We  cannot  compare  the  hardness  of  platinum 
with  the  color  of  gold,  but  we  may  compare  the  hardness  of 
one  with  the  hardness  of  the  other,  and  the  color  of  one  with 
the  color  of  the  other.  We  cannot  compare  the  faith  of 
Abraham  with  the  courage  of  Elijah,  but  we  can  compare 
the  faith  of  Abraham  with  the  faith  of  Elijah.  Investigate 
revealed  religion  and  many  of  its  mysteries  will  fade  away. 
Observe  the  five  rules  laid  down  for  the  limitation  of  reason 
in  its  investigation,  and  that  which  remains  from  necessity 
a  mystery  on  account  of  its  magnitude  or  the  condition  it 
sustains  to  the  infinite,  you  will  accept  with  your  faith,  and 
God  will  bless  you. 

II.  I  will  now  notice,  briefly,  the  second  theses  of  both 
antitheses.     They  read  thus:  "But  then  face  to  face — but 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  345 

then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known."  Their  sense 
is,  that  "  then,"  in  the  future  state,  we  will  have  a  more  sat- 
isfactory and  thorough  knowledge  of  invisible,  spiritual,  and 
heavenly  things.  That  "then"  we  will  see  those  not  by 
reflection  as  we  see  them  here,  but  face  to  face  ;  not  by  rep- 
resentatives as  we  see  them  here,  but  see  the  things  them- 
selves. That  while  our  knowledge  of  them  in  this  life  is 
confined  to  a  "part,"  that  "then"  it  will  approximate  the 
whole.  That  while  we  know  so  small  a  "  part "  of  them  here 
as  to  be  unable  to  form  a  knowledge  of  the  whole,  that 
"  then  "  we  will  see  enough  of  the  parts  as  to  be  able  to  ar- 
rive at  a  satisfactory  knowledge  of  all  of  them.  That  we 
will  see  so  many  sides  of  an  octagon  as  to  be  able  to  know 
that  it  is  an  octagon — so  great  a  part  of  the  circle  as  to  be 
able  to  determine  its  curve  and  calculate  its  size,  and  form  a 
reliable  knowledge  of  all  sides  of  it.  The  degree  of  this 
knowledge  is  to  be  as  perfect  as  we  are  known.  And  that 
our  names,  faces,  natures,  characters,  histories,  and  destinies, 
will  be  known  in  that  future  state,  and  well  known,  surely 
cannot  be  denied,  if  the  denier  has  to  make  his  denial  good. 

The  text  is  written  to  Christians ;  therefore,  is  descriptive 
of  a  blissful  future  state,  where  darkness  shall  give  place  to 
light  ;  ignorance  to  knowledge  ;  where  mysteries  shall  eter- 
nally dissipate  and  grow  dimmer,  and  realities  eternally  ad- 
vance from  the  dispelling  gloom  and  grow  brighter ;  where 
our  opportunities  for  seeing  and  knowing  will  be  grander  and 
vaster.  In  fact  the  text  confines  itself  to  the  revelations  of  a 
future  state  in  its  adaptations  to  the  human  intellect,  charac- 
terized by  higher  intellectual  achievements. 

That  its  knowledge  will  be  more  extensive  is  clear  for 
several  reasons  :  1.  The  intellect  will  no  longer  be  embar- 
rassed in  the  exercise  of  its  powers  by  a  coarse,  plodding 
materiality.  I  am  not  a  sensist,  or  empiric,  but  because  of 
the  intimate  and  sympathetic  relation  between  mind  and  body 
15* 


346  SERMONS. 

in  this  state,  the  intellect  is  dependent  for  its  immediate 
knowledge  of  eternal  things  upon  material  sensation.  Its 
field  of  research,  therefore,  with  reference  to  external  things, 
must  be  within  the  compass  of  material  senses.  The  quan- 
tity of  knowledge  received  can  never  exceed  the  individual 
powers  of  the  sense  which  constituted  the  channel  of  ingress 
upon  the  intellect.  If  a  solitary  physical  sense,  therefore,  is 
defective  or  imperfect,  from  bodily  deformity,  disease,  or  old 
age,  its  knowledge  of  external  things  by  a  direct  process  is 
lessened  in  the  same  ratio. 

Again,  the  intellect  cannot  form  a  truthful  conclusion  from 
many  premises,  unless  it  has  a  clear  understanding  of  all  of 
them  at  the  same  time  ;  and  it  cannot  intelligently  entertain 
but  one  idea  at  the  same  time.  Its  apprehensive  powers 
must  therefore  be  highly  transitive.  It  must  be  able  to  pass 
from  one  object  to  another  more  rapidly  than  light.  It  must 
be  semiubiquitous.  This  slow  material  body  with  its  gross 
organs,  prevents  the  necessary  rapidity  of  the  spirit's  motion, 
thence  the  intellect  lacks  symmetry,  and  its  conclusions  of- 
ten amount  to  philosophic  monsters,  and  metaphysical  mal- 
formations. 

Again,  in  virtue  of  the  intellect's  incarnation  in  a  material 
body,  it  is  brought  remotely  under  the  embarrassing  control 
of  the  material  laws,  which  govern  rocks,  clods,  and  dust. 
Would  it  aspire,  and  rise  higher?  It  is  imprisoned  in  a 
body  which  is  bound  to  the  earth  by  the  laws  of  gravity — 
laws  which  dampen  its  ardor,  and  continually  remind  it  of 
barriers  it  cannot  break  through,  of  fetters  it  cannot  sunder, 
of  limits  it  cannot  transcend  in  this  world. 

Again  in  this  world  the  body  grows  old  and  dies  before  the 
intellect  masters  the  elementary  principles  of  knowledge. 
The  little  boy  must  close  his  primer,  the  chemist  his  labor- 
atory, the  geologist  drop  his  pick  and  spade,  the  astronomer 
break  his  orrery,  the  geometrician  spoil  his  diagram,  and  die 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  347 

in  the  very  beginning  of  their  studies.  But  in  the  future 
state,  if  it  be  before  the  resurrection  the  spirit  will  have  no 
body ;  if  after  the  resurrection  the  body  will  be  so  perfect  in 
its  structure  and  functions,  so  refined,  sublimated,  spiritual- 
ized, and  immortalized  in  its  constitution,  it  cannot  possibly 
embarrass  or  impede  the  intellect  in  the  exercise  of  its 
powers,  in  any  of  the  ways  mentioned.  How  vaster  the  facil- 
ities for  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  ! 

2.  Because  of  the  absence  of  sin.  God's  universal  system 
is  a  perfect  unity.  The  soul  was  a  unit  in  this  unity.  Sin  a 
foreign  element  in  the  system  touched  the  nature  of  that 
soul,  and  naturally  threw  it  out  of  the  organized  whole.  And 
as  a  result  the  intellect  fell  behind  the  advancement  of  uni- 
versal being.  Like  a  harp  marred  and  cracked,  with  broken 
strings  and  all  out  of  tune,  it  was  banished  from  sight  in  a 
dark  dusty  corner.  Sin  reversed  man's  constitution,  debasing 
the  spiritual  and  elevating  the  sensual.  It  brought  the  intel- 
lect under  the  control  of  passion  and  prejudice,  which  em- 
barrasses it  in  the  discovery  and  understanding  of  truth, 
hence  crippling  and  fatal  errors  in  philosophy  and  reli- 
gion. 

But  in  the  future  state,  there  will  be  no  sin.  The  soul  will 
stand  in  harmony  with  everything  else.  Its  relations  to  God 
and  the  universe  will  be  restored  and  adjusted.  The  harp 
will  be  renewed,  the  broken  strings  replaced,  and  brought 
out  of  the  dark  dusty  corner  will  discourse  sweet  music  for- 
ever. The  unity  of  man's  constitution,  and  the  relations  of 
its  elements  and  powers,  will  also  be  perfectly  restored. 
Removed  from  the  generative  and  fostering  influence  of  sin, 
passion,  and  prejudice,  will  have  died,  and  the  intellect  un- 
fettered will  rise  above  all  error,  and  career  with  steady  wing 
amid  the  stupendous  heights  of  eternal  truth  forever. 

In  the  future  state,  the  redeemed  will  roam  over  the  fields 
of  eternity  in   search  of  knowledge.     They  will   move  and 


348  SERMONS. 

think  at  will.  Unfettered  by  any  arbitrary  decree  they  will 
follow  the  impulses  and  promptings  of  their  own  nature,  and 
in  so  doing  will  act  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  God. 
Here  is  man  at  last  in  his  proper  sphere,  elevated  above  all 
that  is  material  and  sensual ;  above  the  necessity  of  taxing 
his  intellectual  energies  with  the  solution  of  debasing  query  : 
"  What  shall  I  eat,  and  wherewith  shall  I  be  clothed  ? " 
Mind  at  last  enthroned  a  King  puissant  and  imperial,  and 
matter  its  servant. 

Man  at  last  in  the  bosom  of  his  destiny,  ultra-probation- 
ary and  ultra-mundane,  amid  the  vast  tomes  of  the  grand 
library  of  heaven  in  search  of  knowledge. —  The  physical 
laws  of  the  universe,  the  mathematics  of  motion,  the  philoso- 
phy of  physics,  the  rationale  of  metaphysics,  the  wonders  of 
the  atonement,  the  perfect  principles  of  a  perfect  govern- 
ment, the  nature  of  God,  spirits,  himself,  the  profound  love 
of  angels,  will  furnish  subjects  of  study  forever.  He  will 
converse  with  cherubims,  listen  to  the  disquisitions  of  arch- 
angels, the  erudition  of  sages,  and  sit  as  a  disciple  at  the 
footstool  of  the  Son  of  Mary. 

Man  will  learn  on  forever.  An  eternal  progression  !  As- 
similation to  the  Divine  intelligence  by  an  eternal  approxi- 
mation, is  the  law  of  his  progressive  and  aggressive  mind. 
His  capacity,  therefore,  his  aptitude  for  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge,  will  be  increased  in  proportion  to  his  acquire- 
ments. This  as  an  element  in  the  progression  makes  the 
ratio  of  the  increase,  accelerative.  An  eternal  progression  ! 
I  appeal  to  you.  As  you  have  ascended  in  the  scale  of  pro- 
gression, in  place  of  discovering  a  limit,  you  have  been  more 
satisfactorily  conscious  of  the  capacity  of  your  powers  for  in- 
finite advancement.  In  place  of  consciousness  of  a  diminu- 
tion of  power  as  if  approaching  a  limit,  you  have  been  con- 
scious of  an  increasing  strength  equal  to  all  the  links  and 
gradation  of  a  chain  as  necessarily  infinite  as  the  Author  of 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  349 

your  being  is — of  pinions  increasing  in  power  with  the  diffi- 
culties and  altitude  of  your  ascent. 

What  a  chain  of  progression  !  commencing  where  we  learn 
our  first  letter,  who  was  the  first  man,  when  we  repeated  our 
first  prayer  at  the  knees  of  maternity,  till  dropping  the  rudi- 
ments and  leaving  the  elementary  principles  of  death,  we  take 
our  first  lessons  in  the  science  of  angels  and  the  metaphysics 
of  heaven,  and  advancing  from  stage  to  stage,  learn  on 
throughout  the  endless  whirl  of  eternity's  cycles.  Dr.  Dod- 
dridge learned  the  first  principles  of  religious  truth  from  Bible 
pictures,  then  from  books,  himself,  experience,  and  nature, 
still  advancing  till  he  was  called  up  to  pursue  his  studies 
9-mid  the  facilitating  and  brighter  glories  of  a  higher  state. 
The  Dutch  tiles  of  the  old  fireplace  at  home  lie  has  ex- 
changed for  the  graphic  .imagery  of  the  city  and  country  of 
God.  There  the  unwearied  student  of  heaven's  mysteries  is 
still  engaged  and  advancing,  and  will  be  engaged  and  will 
advance  while  eternity  has  an  undiscovered  wonder,  and  God 
has  a  throne.     By  and  by  we  will  join  him. 

In  all  this  there  is  no  oppressive  labor — mind  never  tires, 
the  body  does ;  but  then  spiritualized  and  glorified,  it  will  be 
no  encumbrance.  Tyros  of  time  and  sense,  eternity  is  but 
the  period  of  our  pupilage,  graduation  never.  Let  us  study 
below,  and  follow  pursuits  here,  with  reference  to  our  matri- 
culation and  advancement  above.  Then  we  will  know  more 
about  ourselves.  The  relations  of  soul  and  body ;  their  in- 
dividual powers;  their  respective  value;  their  relations  to 
God  and  universal  being.  We  will  know  more  about  Re- 
demption. Its  history,  developments,  triumphs,  and  consum- 
mation. We  will  have  a  clearer  insight  into  its  relations  to 
God,  His  system,  to  man,  to  law,  to  Justice,  and  mercy. 
We  will  know  more  about  the  principles  of  restoration  and 
compensation,  fundamentally  involved  in  its  structure,  and 
their  philosophic  adjustment  to  each  other.     More  about  the 


3*0  SERMONS. 

doctrine  of  mediation,  around  which  the  scheme  revolves,  and 
from  which  its  agencies  borrow  their  power. 

We  will  know  more  about  Providence.  By  retrospection, 
with  a  mind  relieved  of  its  weights  and  cleared  of  its  dark- 
ness, assisted  by  angels,  sages,  and  results  we  can  under- 
stand more  correctly  the  operations  of  a  system  of  Providen- 
tial government,  which  subordinates  Satan,  sin,  hell,  and 
death,  with  all  their  hosts,  influences,  agencies,  and  efforts, 
to  carry  out  wise  and  holy  purposes.  We  can  trace  more 
accurately  the  hand  moving  in  darkness,  which  gathered  up 
the  apparently  isolated  causes  and  effects  of  time,  and  wove 
them  into  one  mighty  plan,  redounding  in  salvation  to  man 
and  glory  to  God.  We  will  no  longer  be  perplexed  with  the 
rapid  movements  of  flying  cherubim ;  confounded  with  the 
roar  and  intricate  movements  of  compounded  wheels ;  with 
whirlwinds,  clouds,  fires,  and  darkness  ;  with  ruined  thrones 
and  bleeding  hearts  ;  no  longer  be  awed  with  mysteries  and 
bewildered  with  seeming  contradictions. 

Then  we  will  know  why  the  chariot  of  the  stern  God  of 
war,  its  revolving  wheels  grinding  flames  from  their  heated 
axles,  rolling  their  bloody  rims  in  appalling  grandeur  above 
the  mountain  tops,  was  permitted  to  pass  through  our  once 
happy  land,  and  leave  its  smoky  and  desolating  track  along 
the  highways  of  our  national  prosperity.  Then  we  will  know 
why  our  children  fell  on  the  battle-field,  and  died  amid  the 
roar  of  artillery  and  the  crack  of  musketry,  their  life-blood 
staining  the  turf  of  a  thousand  battle-fields,  with  none  to  kiss 
their  quivering  lips,  to  wipe  the  dew  of  death  from  their  pal- 
ing brows,  and  to  catch  the  last  wish  and  whisper  to  send  to 
loved  one  far  away — and  why  they  were  piled  uncoffined  and 
promiscuously  into  yawning  ditches,  afterwards  levelled  by 
the  broad  straiks  of  the  cannon's  carriage,  where  no  father 
can  ever  rear  the  sculptured  marble,  or  mother  plant  the 
creeping  vine. 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  351 

Then  we  will  know  the  reason  of  our  bereavements,  the 
reason  of  our  sufferings.  God  may  tell  us.  Or  sainted 
loved  ones  may  lead  by  the  hand  to  an  arbor  under  the  ex- 
tended branches  of  the  tree  of  life,  and  upon  the  banks  of 
that  river  which  maketh  glad  the  city  of  God,  and  there  ex- 
plain in  measured  verse  set  to  music,  a  thousand  angels 
responding,  till  wrapt  with  thankfulness  we  rush  to  the  foot 
of  the  throne  and  pour  out  our  gratitude. 

We  will  know  more  about  Creation.  We  will  know  more 
about  the  laws  and  phenomena  of  the  universe  than  we  now 
know  of  this  poor  earth.  Myriads  of  systems  may  lie  beyond 
the  galaxy,  but  we  know  it  not.  Then  we  may  know  ;  yea, 
we  may  walk  their  burning  orbs  and  praise  our  God  in  the 
language  of  other  spheres.  How  vastly  greater  and  more 
extended  our  view.  Clamber  up  some  mountain  summit. 
Spread  out  before  you  are  waving  forests,  dancing  cascades, 
roaring  cataracts,  running  rills,  rolling  rivers,  mountains, 
hills,  valleys,  gorges,  and  rocks  ;  landscapes  sweeping  away 
until  they  melt  in  the  distant  azure.  Stand  there  until  sun- 
set. Watch  his  parting  beams  shoot  in  level  splendor  from 
his  setting  disc,  and  kiss  the  ugly  cloud  and  tissue  it  with 
emerald  and  tire,  or  fling  a  jewelled  crescent  upon  its  darkest 
wing.  Banks  of  fog  and  vapor,  gilded  with  gold,  stand  meta- 
morphosed into  the  giant  battlements  of  some  fairy  city.  Twi- 
light deepens,  and  the  broad  bending  arch  of  the  deep  blue 
firmament  from  a  thousand  points  of  light,  rains  a  steady  shower 
of  silver  splendors  over  land  and  sea.     How  magnificent ! 

Now  change  your  standpoint.  Stand  upon  the  lofty  fron- 
tiers of  heaven.  Took  down,  down,  to  chaos,  around  and 
up,  till  creation  kisses  nihilism.  The  inimitable  and  inex- 
pressible grandeur  overwhelms  the  mind.  Worlds  roll  below, 
worlds  roll  above,  worlds  roll  around,  and  comets  with  di- 
shevelled hair  of  streaming  fire  glitter  on  the  confines.  The 
panorama  of  the  universe  is  one  of  your  text-books. 


352  SERMONS. 

Now  turn  about  and  look  at  the  city  itself,  the  grand  old 
city  of  God,  the  seat  of  His  imperial  government,  where  the 
archives  of  all  worlds  are  filed,  the  metropolis  of  His  Empire, 
where  all  decrees  are  made  and  signed  and  all  embassies 
arrive  and  depart,  the  royal  emporium  where  eternity  stores 
its  commerce,  the  home  of  angels,  the  home  of  the  elect ;  and 
gaze  upon  its  palatial  hills  and  streets  of  flashing  gold,  its 
gleaming  spires  and  crystal  domes  spangled  with  pearls  and 
glittering  with  diamond  frost,  surrounded  with  walls  of  bur- 
nished jasper  battlemented  with  ruby  and  turreted  with 
sapphire.  In  the  centre  of  the  view  is  the  mount  where  God 
sits  enthroned,  at  whose  base  are  the  fountains  of  the  river 
of  life,  which  like  a  stream  of  liquid  gems,  embanked  in 
emeralds  and  gravelled  with  diamonds,  sweeps  through  courts 
and  amaranthine  gardens,  laving  the  polished  fountains  of 
gorgeous  palaces,  winding  this  way  till  flowing  beyond  the 
walls  it  disappears  like  a  tortuous  line  of  shimmering  silver 
amid  the  flowery  escarpments  of  heaven's  eternal  landscapes. 

We  will  know  more  about  the  angels  ;  they  will  be  our 
companions.  More  about  demons  ;  their  creation,  fall, 
power,  and  destiny.  More  about  hell ;  it  may  be  in  sight. 
More  about  Heaven  ;  for  it  will  be  our  home,  and  we  expect 
to  reside  there  forever.  We  will  know  more  about  Jesus ; 
his  nature,  love,  merits,  and  work  ;  his  incarnation,  death, 
resurrection,  and  ascension  ;  his  mediation,  and  intercession ; 
his  humiliation  and  exaltation.  We  will  see  in  Him  human 
nature  perfect,  powerful,  spiritual,  incorruptible,  immortal, 
beautiful,  heavenly,  glorious — and  seeing  him  we  will  see 
ourselves,  for  we  shall  be  like  him. 

We  will  know  more  about  God.  In  fact,  to  know  more 
about  ourselves,  Creation,  Redemption,  etc.,  is  to  know  more 
about  God.  He  will  be  all  in  all  blessed  forevermore.  We 
will  see  Him  "  face  to  face."  But  before  the  stupendous 
glory  of  His  essential  existence,  the  co-ordinate  magnificence 


MYSTERY   OF   CHRISTIANITY.  353 

of  His  perfections,  we  and  what  we  know  will  sink  to  noth- 
ing. Yet  there  will  be  no  painful  oppression  of  mind  or 
soul.  The  sublimities  of  His  indiscerptible  being  will  but 
quicken  our  powers  for  higher  attainments  in  theology — 
Theos,  logos,  discourse  on  God  or  science  of  God. 

Theosophic  communications  with  Deity,  theophany  on 
His  part,  and  love,  reverence,  and  appreciation  upon  ours  we 
will  commune  with  Him,  and  He  with  us.  He  will  be  our 
Father  and  we  will  be  His  children,  and  under  the  aegis  of 
His  eternal  protection  we  will  take  up  our  everlasting  habita- 
tion. 


SERMON  XXVI. 

THE    RESURRECTION    OF   THE    HUMAN    BODY. 

"  How  are  the  dead  raised  up?  and  with  what  body  do  they  come  ? ' 
i  Cor.  xv.  35. 

WE  are  all  standing  upon  the  threshold  of  an  awful 
future,  replete  with  facts  and  instinct  with  entities, 
about  which  we  know  but  little.  Let  but  the  heart  cease  its 
beating,  or  one  vital  function  of  this  body  cease  its  office, 
and  we  are  gone — gone  !  to  grapple  with  the  stern  truths  of 
ages,  at  once  interminable,  inconceivable,  unknown. 

"  To  be  or  not  to  be,"  after  death,  is  answered,  and  nearly 
all  men,  though  with  different  degrees  of  faith,  are  looking 
confidently  to  an  existence  beyond  the  grave. 

The  idea  of  immortality  has  descended  down  the  stream 
of  human  generations  from  the  first  pair  in  Paradise,  running 
down  every  branch  from  the  central  tide,  disappearing  in 
one,  corrupted  in  another,  and  becoming  more  lucid  and  sat- 
isfactory in  another,  to  the  present  age.  It  is  seen  in  the 
language,  literature,  and  manners  of  every  age  ;  in  the  his- 
tory, philosophy,  and  poetry  of  every  people.  It  is  seen  in 
the  retributive  horrors  of  Tartarus,  the  rich  fields  and  streams 
of  Elysium,  the  Hesperian  seas  and  islets  of  the  Red  man, 
the  heaven  and  hell  of  the  Christians. 

But  the  heathen  apply  the  idea  of  immortality  to  the  soul 
only.  The  ancient  heathen  complained  that  the  sun  went 
down  at  night,  and  arose  in  the  morning,  but  their  friends 
went  down  in  the  gloomy  darkness  of  death,  and  rose   no 


THE   RESURRECTION   OF   THE   HUMAN   BODY.     355 

more.  They  saw  upon  the  face  of  every  mysterious  Provi- 
dence which  swept  the  earth,  in  bold  and  living  colors  the 
pencillings  of  immortality  :  they  felt  the  truth  attested  within 
by  an  instinctive  shrinking  back  from  annihilation,  yet  the 
tomb  was  invested  with  an  eternal  darkness,  and  the  body 
surrendered  to  a  perpetual  sleep.  With  them  the  night  of 
death  was  starless  :  there  was  no  anticipated  morning  whose 
auroral  splendors  would  break  in  upon  the  darkness  of  the 
grave,  and  hang  the  rainbow  of  hope  over  the  dust  of  the 
dead. 

The  idea  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body  does  not  appear 
to  have  occurred  to  them.  To  what  source  is  the  world  then 
indebted  for  its  existence  ?  Not  to  reason,  for  the  mind  has 
not  the  requisite  data ;  not  to  nature,  for  it  is  super-nature  ; 
not  to  science,  for  it  is  beyond  the  province  of  science  ;  but 
to  the  Bible.  It  is  the  great  fact  recognized  in  the  text,  and 
is  purely  a  subject  of  revelation.  Let  semi-infidel  divines 
seek  for  the  evidences  of  the  resurrection  elsewhere  ;  it  is 
only  found  in  the  Bible.  I  would  not  exclude  those  rich 
illustrations  corroborating  Bible  fact,  which  pour  from  every 
department  in  philosophic  and  material  existence — no  ;  but 
I  appeal  to  the  Bible,  proven  as  it  is  to  be  the  Word  of 
God,  as  the  highest  evidence  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead. 

Hear  with  what  authority  it  speaks  :  "  Thy  dead  men 
shall  live,  together  with  my  dead  body  shall  they  arise  " 
(Is.  xxvi.  19).  "  Dead  men  "  !  "  Dead  bodies  "  !  "They 
shall  arise!" — "He  that  raised  up  Christ  from  the  dead 
shall  also  quicken  your  mortal  bodies,  by  His  spirit  that 
dwelleth  in  you"  (Rom.  ix.  it).  "  Many  of  them  that  sleep 
in  the  dust  of  the  earth,  shall  awake,  some  to  everlasting 
life,  and  some  to  everlasting  contempt"  (Dan.  xii.  2). 
"  Asleep  "  !  "  Awake  "  ! — "  The  hour  is  coming,  in  the 
which  all  that  are   in  the  graves  shall  hear   His  voice   and 


356  SERMONS. 

come  forth  "  (John  v.  28,  29).  Such  announcements,  my 
hearers,  have  kindled  a  smile  upon  the  brow  of  bereave- 
ment, and  a  star  in  the  graves  of  the  departed. 

This  doctrine  being  peculiar  to  Christianity  and  having 
nothing  analogous  in  nature,  has  been  a  favorite  object  of 
attack  by  every  school  of  Infidels  since  its  announcement. 
It  is  condemned  as  false,  because  it  involves  a  mystery. 
This  argument  is  of  no  force  unless  it  is  true  universally, 
unless  every  other  thing  which  involves  a  mystery  is  false 
too.  If  it  is  true  universally,  if  every  thing  which  involves 
a  mystery  is  false,  then  there  is  nothing  true  in  the  universe. 
The  argument  proves  too  much,  therefore  is  v    »th  nothing. 

The  objector  confounds  two  things  very  essentially  differ- 
ent ;  mystery  as  to  fact,  and  mystery  as  to  a  mode.  A  fact 
may  be  plain,  while  the  manner  of  its  production  may  be 
mysterious.  The  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  is  a  doctrine 
of  fact,  and  as  such  is  clear,  but  its  mode  is  mysterious. 
The  objector  confounds  mystery  with  absurdity.  An  absurd- 
ity is  something  contradictory  in  its  very  nature  to  human 
reason  and  common  sense,  such  as  supposing  an  effect 
greater  than  its  cause  ;  a  mystery  is  something  beyond  human 
comprehension  on  the  account  of  its  magnitude,  or  the  rela- 
tion it  sustains  to  Infinite  Power.  The  resurrection  of 
the  human  body  is  not  an  absurdity,  for  it  is  not  contrary  to 
human  reason  ;  but  a  mystery,  for  it  involves  the  agency  of 
infinite  power  to  accomplish  it.  A  doctrine  whose  founda- 
tion stone  is  Omnipotence,  could  not  from  its  nature  be  sub- 
jected to  the  feeble  rules  and  restrictions  of  reason. 

To  deny  the  truth  of  the  resurrection  because  its  mode 
is  a  mystery  to  us,  is  to  say  that  a  finite  mind  is  equal 
in  discovering  and  investigating  power  to  all  difficulties  in- 
volved in  the  existence  and  nature  of  any  truth,  however  in- 
timate its  relations  to  the  great  infinite,  either  in  bring  or 
principle. 


THE   RESURRECTION   OF   THE   HUMAN   BODY.     357 

Another  objector  says,  the  resurrection  contradicts  the 
great  principles  of  science.  No  science  is  perfect :  it  has 
been  the  business  of  one  age  to  modify  and  improve  the 
science  of  the  past  age ;  a  future  age  will  but  expose  the 
learned  follies  of  this.  Science  is  scarcely  out  of  its  swad- 
dling-clothes. Is  it  entitled  to  more  credence  than  the 
Bible  ?  Must  this  old  Book,  hoary  with  the  age  of  centuries, 
written  by  the  finger  of  inspiration,  born  at  Sinai,  completed 
amid  the  splendors  of  the  Apocalypse,  whose  footprints  are 
seen  in  the  crumbled  dust  of  earth's  wrecked  and  ruined 
greatness,  whose  teachings  are  Godlike,  whose  precepts  are 
thunder-given,  whose  promises  are  the  hope  of  the  world,  fly 
the  stage  before  the  gorgeous  diction  and  sacrilegious  pre- 
tensions of  an  ungodly  and  pseudo-philosophy  ? 

But  "I  could  never  see  any  point  or  relevancy  in  the  objec- 
tion. In  what  department  of  true  science  are  those  princi- 
ples found  and  taught,  conflicting  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection  ?  I  appeal  to  all  the  tomes  in  the  wide  range 
of  scientific  lore  for  an  answer — they  are  nowhere.  AH 
science  is  founded  upon  the  discoveries  of  sense  ;  and  if  it 
teaches  such  principles,  it  has  exceeded  its  province,  there- 
fore it  is  no  argument.  Revelation  is  the  only  oracle  of  our 
faith,  and  the  proper  tribunal  before  which  to  refer  our  theo- 
logical questions.  It  is  under  its  potent  influence  alone  that 
life  and  immortality  become  Divine  realities.  To  go  to 
science  to  settle  matters  of  faith,  is  like  going  to  a  diction- 
ary to  learn  history,  or  to  geology  to  learn  mathematics. 

Again,  the  objector  says,  it  is  contrary  to  our  experience. 
But  the  great  error  in  the  objection  is,  that  the  objector  as- 
sumes that  his  individual  experience  is  the  universal  expe- 
rience of  the  race.  The  exact  and  entire  experience  of  an 
individual  now  is  unlike  in  many  respects  the  experience  of 
his  contemporaries  ;  how  much  more  is  it  unlike  the  experi- 
ences of  men  in  different  ages  of  the  world,  and  in  different 


358  SERMONS. 

stages  of  its  development.  It  does  not  follow  because  the 
tawny  son  of  the  tropics  has  never  seen  the  earth  whitened 
with  snow,  that  the  Laplander  has  not  seen  it ;  neither  does 
it  follow  because  we  never  saw  a  man  raised  from  the  dead, 
that  the  Apostles  did  not  see  it. 

Again,  it  is  urged  that  the  resurrection  is  contrary  to  the 
immutability  of  the  laws  of  nature.  This  argument  is  of  no 
force,  for  the  resurrection  is  not  to  be  brought  about  by  the 
regular  action  of  the  laws  of  cause  and  effect,  but  by  a  super- 
natural power.  "  Do  ye  not  therefore  err,"  said  Christ  to 
the  Sadducees,  "  because  ye  know  not  the  Scriptures,  neither 
the  power  of  God  ?  "  "  Why  should  it  be  thought  incredible 
with  you,"  says  Paul,  "  that  God  should  raise  the  dead  ?  "  It 
is  a  provision  of  Redemption,  hence  above  nature  and  na- 
ture's laws,  yet  not  contradictory  to  them,  to  either  nature  or 
its  laws.  It  is  a  provision  of  a  supernatural  plan  coming 
down  upon  nature,  and  entering  in  unity  with  it,  into  the  unity 
of  God's  grand  system,  embracing  the  material,  immaterial, 
and  moral. 

Another  objection  is,  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  is  an 
impossibility,  because  this  body  continually  changes  its  sub- 
stances, so  that  the  bodies  we  now  have  are  not  the  same  we 
had  a  few  years  ago,  nor  will  be  the  same  a  few  years  hence 
• — that  the  bodies  in  which  we  have  sinned  or  acted  right- 
eously may  not  be  in  many  instances  the  same  bodies  as 
those  which  will  be  actually  rewarded  and  punished.  This 
argument  contradicts  the  infidel's  own  theory  of  the  seat  of 
personal  identity,  transferring  the  ego  from  the  soul,  the  only 
true  subject  of  reward  and  punishment,  to  the  body,  which  is 
rewarded  and  punished  simply  as  the  instrument. 

Such  an  argument  would  liberate  in  a  few  years  every  crim- 
inal in  the  world.  Why  retain  a  man  in  prison  longer  than 
the  time  afforded  by  this  supposition  for  a  perfect  and  entire 
change  of  the  substance  of  his  body  ?     Know  you  not  at  the 


THE   RESURRECTION    OF  THE   HUMAN   BODY.     35Q 

expiration  of  the  hypothetical  number  of  seven  years  that  he 
is  immaculate  unless  he  sinned  during  his  imprisonment? 
that  there  is  not  a  particle  of  that  guilty  body  which  was  in- 
carcerated ?  Open  your  state  prisons  and  penitentiaries, 
and  let  their  hordes  out  upon  society,  they  are  innocent. 
The  same  argument  would  so  affect  the  proceedings  of  our 
criminal  courts,  that  Judge  and  Jury  would  have  to  exercise 
great  care  to  know  how  much  of  the  guilty  body  was  ar- 
raigned at  the  bar,  if  any,  in  order  to  mete  out  the  ends  of 
Justice. 

Such  an  argument,  though  popular  and  common,  contra- 
dicts common  sense,  the  common  consciousness  and  experi- 
ence of  mankind.  Again,  it  would  apply  with  equal  force 
against  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  His  body,  according  to 
this  hypothesis,  changed  several  times,  at  least  four  times. 
Yet  what  body  did  he  bring  up  ?  This  brings  us  to  the  true 
and  Scriptural  answer  to  the  objection — the  same  body  he 
laid  down  in  the  grave. 

We  have  an  evidence  of  the  resurrection  of  the  human 
body  in  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  "  Since  by  man  came 
death,  by  man  came  also  the  resurrection  of  the  dead."  M  If 
Christ  rose  from  the  dead,  how  say  some  among  you  that 
there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead  ?  But  if  there  be  no  res- 
urrection of  the  dead,  then  is  not  Christ  risen."  (1  Cor.  xv.) 
The  resurrection  of  the  race  follows  naturally  from  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ.  This  is  clear  from  the  federal  representa- 
tive nature  of  Christ.  The  relations  he  sustains  from  his  fed- 
eral representative  nature  to  Adam  proves  it.  If  Adam  in 
his  representative  character  brought  death  into  the  world  by 
his  fall,  and  died  himself,  it  is  reasonable  that  Christ,  in  his 
representative  character,  should  by  his  life,  death,  and  resur- 
rection bring  life  into  the  world.  The  relation  he  sustains 
from  his  federal  representative  nature  to  us  proves  it. 
Being  our  second  federal  Head,  and  heaven-appointed  Pro- 


360  SERMONS. 

totype,  and  that  he  did  take  upon  himself  a  human  body,  and 
resumed  that  body  after  it  had  lain  in  the  grave,  exalted  it  to 
heaven,  changed  and  glorified,  is  powerful  evidence  that  our 
bodies  too  shall  be  raised,  changed,  and  glorified,  and  dwell 
with  his  forever. 

Again,  if  it  was  necessary  for  Christ,  to  complete  the  plan 
of  salvation,  to  be  raised  from  the  dead,  it  is  also  necessary, 
to  complete  the  execution  of  the  plan,  that  man  also  should 
be  raised,  and  furthermore  if  he  was  able  to  raise  himself,  he 
is  able  to  raise  others.  Such  is  the  argument  of  Paul,  hence 
he  adduces  as  his  principal  evidence  the  fact,  that  Jesus  rose 
from  the  dead.  His  resurrection  is  the  type  of  ours.  Part 
of  our  nature  is  in  heaven ;  the  exaltation  of  a  part  argues 
the  exaltation  of  the  whole.  The  Great  Head  of  the  church 
has  gone  up,  and  the  body  must  follow.  He  is,  as  the  Apos- 
tle expresses  it,  "The  first  fruits  of  them  that  slept." 

The  Jews  were  commanded  to  cut  the  first  ripening  grain 
in  their  fields  and  take  it  to  Jerusalem,  and  lay  it  upon  the 
altar  as  a  pledge  of  the  coming  harvest  and  as  a  thank  offer- 
ing to  God.  At  the  end  of  the  harvest  they  all  again  met  at 
Jerusalem  to  celebrate  the  harvest  feast ;  which  they  did 
with  sacrifices  and  thanksgiving  for  many  days.  Now  Christ 
the  "  first  fruits  "  lays  upon  God's  altar  in  heaven,  as  a  pledge 
of  that  glorious  harvest  at  the  end  of  the  world,  which  will 
leave  every  old  tomb  tenantless,  and  gather  us  all,  soul  and 
body  both,  redeemed  and  glorified  into  heaven. 

The  scheme  of  human  redemption  necessarily  embraces 
the  resurrection  of  the  human  body.  Its  provisions  extend 
to  the  body,  as  well  as  to  the  soul.  Hear  the  Scriptures  : 
"  Ye  are  not  your  own,  but  are  bought  with  a  price  ;  there- 
fore glorify  God  with  your  body  and  your  spirit,  which  are 
God's."  (1  Cor.  vi.  19,  20.)  Both  body  and  soul  are  God's. 
Both  bought  by  the  blood  of  Jesus.  Surely  a  body  bought 
by  the  blood  of  Christ,  especially  when  that  body  has  been 


THE   RESURRECTION   OF   THE   HUMAN   BODY.     361 

the  sanctified  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  cannot  perish  for- 
ever. "  We  wait  for  the  adoption,  to  wit,  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  body."  (Rom.  viii.  23.)  "lam  the  resurrection 
and  the  life,"  Christ  exclaims.  No  mistaking  his  meaning, 
for  he  is  speaking  with  reference  to  Lazarus.  Peter  and 
John  u  preached. through  Jesus  the  resurrection  of  the  dead." 
(Acts.  iv.  2.)  If  through  Christ,  it  is  embraced  in  Redemp- 
tion. "  Christ  hath  abolished  death  and  hath  brought  life 
and  immortality  to  light  through  the  Gospel."  (2  Tim.  i.  10.) 

The  seat  of  self-consciousness,  or  personal  identity,  is  in 
the  soul,  yet  the  body  is  an  integral  and  essential  part 
of  the  constitution  of  man.  God  doubtlessly  designed  in  the 
creation  of  man  the  blending  of  the  two  great  elements  of 
His  universe,  the  spiritual  and  material,  into  one  creature. 
This  is  clear  from  the  very  facts  of  the  case  ;  the  creation  of 
pure  spirits,  the  creation  of  simple  matter,  and  the  creation 
of  the  dual  nature  of  man,  compounded  of  both.  Man  ap- 
pears to  be  the  central  link,  uniting  the  spiritual  and  material, 
in  the  grand  chain  of  life  and  existence,  sweeping  from  the 
throne  of  God  down  through  every  rank  and  order  of  beings, 
by  regular  gradations  to  the  passive  sod  upon  which  we 
walk.  This  being  true,  it  follows  naturally  that  the  body  is 
an  as  essential  part  of  man's  constitution  as  is  his  soul — that 
he  would  not  be  man  without  a  body.  If  this  conclusion  be 
true  again  it  follows,  if  man  is  redeemed,  the  plan  affecting 
such  work  must  include  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul,  or 
man  is  but  half  redeemed,  and  the  plan  is  but  half  a  plan. 

Again,  God's  whole  system,  spiritual  and  material,  cm- 
bracing  His  government  of  both,  is  a  unity — a  well-balanced, 
symmetrical,  magnificent  unity.  The  creation  of  a  bifold 
being,  possessing  in  unity  in  his  constitution  the  two  prime 
elements  of  God's  grand  system,  appears  to  be  necessary  to 
the  unity  of  the  whole.  Now  such  a  creature  was  man,  for 
he  is  both  spiritual  and  material.  Such  being  his  nature,  it 
16 


362  SERMONS. 

is  presumptive  that  as  a  compound,  God  intended  he  should 
be  immortal.  In  fact,  such  is  the  teaching  of  the  Scriptures. 
Now  sin  entered  the  world,  a  foreign  element  in  the  Divine 
system,  and  being  a  violation  of  law,  the  basis  of  all  order, 
naturally  produced  disorganization  and  death.  It  naturally 
destroyed  the  compound  nature  of  man  by  separating  his 
soul  and  body.  Man  was  destroyed  ;  the  design  of  God  was 
thwarted  ;  and  His  system  lost  its  unity.  Results  not  obvi- 
ated by  the  salvation  of  every  disembodied  soul  in  heaven. 

Such  were  the  effects  of  sin,  and  the  nature  of  God,  and 
the  nature  of  things  required  that  it  should  be  expunged  out 
of  His  entire  system.  He  could  have  destroyed  sin  by  the 
destruction  of  everything  which  it  had  effected.  He  could 
have  hurled  His  unbalanced  system  into  nihilism.  He  had 
the  power  to  do  both,  and  His  nature  would  have  justified 
the  action.  But  He  of  His  own  free  will  and  grace  chose 
to  establish  a  redemptive  and  compensatory  dispensation, 
according  to  the  laws  of  His  system  itself,  extending  its  pro- 
visions throughout  the  entire  system,  and  touching  with  its 
restoring  power  everything  which  sin  had  touched — restoring 
man,  establishing  and  perfecting  His  original  designs,  and 
readjusting  the  disturbed  relations  of  universal  being — He 
chose  to  establish  a  redemptive  and  compensatory  dispensa- 
tion constituting  within  itself  a  complete  remedy  for  the 
evils  of  sin. 

A  dispensation  countervailing  the  influences  of  sin  ;  one 
which  would  neutralize  its  poison  and  destroy  the  mephitic 
exhalations  in  man's  moral  atmosphere  ;  one  which  would 
track  with  angel  wing  and  purifying  power  the  paths  of  its 
corruption,  and  extract  the  cancerous  fibres  of  the  deadly 
phagedena  from  the  system  and  government  of  God,  and 
cast  it,  its  author,  and  children  into  Tophet,  and  wall  it  up 
and  arch  it  over,  to  rankle  in  its  own  corruption  in  eternal 
isolation. 


THE   RESURRECTION   OF  THE   HUMAN   BODY.     $6$ 

Now  I  ask  you,  is  man  restored  to  his  original  position  as 
man,  is  the  apparent  design  of  God  in  man's  creation  main- 
tained, and  the  unity  of  His  system  restored,  if  the  body,  one 
of  the  essentials  of  man's  constitution,  one  of  the  essentials 
of  God's  original  design,  one  of  the  essentials  to  the  unity  of 
His  system,  is  never  to  be  raised  from  the  dead  and  united 
with  the  soul  ?  No  ;  Christ  must  save  man  in  all  the  ele- 
ments of  which  man's  is  compounded,  or  His  mission  is  a 
failure.  The  objector  is  driven  to  the  alternative  of  impeach- 
ing the  remedial  character  and  perfection  of  the  atonement, 
or  contradicting  the  Bible  and  the  philosophy  of  the  case, 
deny  that  death  came  by  sin.     Which  choose  ye  ? 

Christ  himself  taught  by  words  and  actions  that  the  res- 
urrection of  the  body  was  included  in  the  great  work  of 
which  he  was  the  subject.  There  was  a  pleasant  little  family 
in  the  town  of  Bethany,  nearly  two  miles  from  Jerusalem, 
which  Jesus  loved — two  sisters,  and  one  brother — Martha, 
Mary,  and  Lazarus.  In  Jesus'  absence  Lazarus  died,  and 
was  buried  in  a  cave,  and  covered  with  a  stone.  Jesus 
heard  of  it,  and  he  and  his  disciples  started  for  the  scene 
of  mourning,  and  arrived  at  Bethany  four  days  after  the  burial. 
Before  he  entered  the  town,  Martha  heard  of  his  coming  and 
went  to  meet  him  :  "  Lord,  if  thou  hadst  been  here,  my 
brother  had  not  died."  "  Thy  brother  shall  rise  again."  "  I 
know  he  shall  rise  again  in  the  resurrection  at  the  last  day," 
says  Martha.  "I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life,"  says 
Christ. 

Martha  runs  and  tells  Mary,  for  many  Jews  were  present, 
"  The  Master  is  come  and  calleth  for  thee."  Mary  rose  up 
hastily  and  ran  to  meet  him,  and  fell  down  at  his  feet  : 
"  Lord,  if  thou  hadst  been  here  my  brother  had  not  died." 
Mary  wept,  the  Jews  who  had  followed  her  wept,  and  "  Jesus 
wept."  "  Where  have  ye  laid  him  ?  "  "  Come  and  see." 
They  went  to  the  cave  :  "  Take  away  the  stone,"  and  Jesus 


364  SERMONS. 

prayed  :  "  Father,  I  thank  thee  that  thou  hast  heard  me  ;  and 
I  knew  that  thou  nearest  me  always  :  but  because  of  the 
people  which  stand  by,  I  said  it,  that  they  may  believe  that 
thou  hast  sent  me." 

Then  Jesus  cried  with  a  voice,  which  one  day  will  pour  its 
trumpet  thunders  throughout  the  vast  charnel-house  of  the 
dead  and  bid  us  all  live,  "  Lazarus,  come  forth," — and  the 
pulse  of  immortality  began  its  vibrations  in  the  grave,  and 
the  sheeted  dead  came  forth  alive.  That  one  dead  man 
arose,  is  presumptive  that  all  dead  men  shall  be  raised  ;  that 
Jesus  raised  him  from  the  dead  during  his  redemptive  mis- 
sion on  earth,  is  conclusive  that  the  resurrection  is  embraced 
in  the  work  of  redemption  ;  and  that  Death  heard  and  obeyed 
Him  once,  argues  that  he  will  hear  and  obey  Him  again. 
This  conclusion  is  clear  from  the  fact  that  when  Jesus  was 
completing  Redemption's  plan  the  graves  were  opened,  and 
as  he  completed  it  by  his  resurrection,  "  many  bodies  of 
the  saints  which  slept,  arose,  and  came  out  of  the  graves." 
And  as  his  resurrection  was  necessary  to  complete  the  work 
of  redemption  he  came  to  perform,  and  did  complete  it ; 
so  by  a  parity  of  reason  our  resurrection  is  necessary  to 
complete  the  work  with  reference  to  us,  and  will  complete 
it. 

Glorious  hope  ! — a  remedy  as  universal  as  the  disease. 
Our  bodies  may  be  dead  for  centuries.  The  Erica  heather 
of  Scotland,  or  the  cactus  of  South  America,  may  bloom 
over  our  graves  ;  the  chilly  mists  of  the  North  may  sheet 
our  tombstones  in  eternal  ice,  or  the  enroachments  of  the 
Southern  desert  may  bury  them  in  sand  ;  marts  of  trade  may  be 
built  over  our  resting-places,  and  the  busy  whirl  of  the  world's 
commerce  may  ring  over  our  sleeping  dust ;  the  plough- 
boy  may  sing  his  merry  song,  and  dance  upon  our  long-lost 
graves ;  corals  may  incrust  our  bones  in  solid  rock  and  up- 
rear  continents  upon  them  ;  or  the  wings  of  the  tempest  may 


THE   RESURRECTION   OF  THE   HUMAN   BODY.     365 

fan  our  dust  all  around  the  world,  yet  the  resurrection  trump 
will  find  us,  and  we  shall  live  again. 

The  inspired  penmen  so  understood  it.  Acting  and  living 
under  the  influence  of  this  doctrine,  they  lose  all  terror  of 
death.  Hear  how  they  term  it  :  "  Many  of  them  that  sleep 
in  the  dust  of  the  earth  shall  awake."  "  Stephen  fell  asleep." 
"  Them  that  sleep  in  Jesus  will  God  bring  with  him."  "  We 
shall  not  all  sleep,  but  we  shall  all  be  changed."  How  ap- 
propriate !  How  expressive  !  for  them  who  sleep  shall  awake. 
Death  is  not  annihilation,  but  simply  a  change.  It  is  sleep. 
To  the  energies  of  the  laboring,  sleep  is  rest  and  recupera- 
tion. Death  is  rest  to  the  good  man  from  all  his  toils, 
where  he  gathers  new  vigor  for  an  eternity  of  action.  Pa- 
geantries of  golden  dreams  pass  before  the  mind  of  the 
sleeper  ;  the  beauties  of  heaven  flash  with  more  beaming 
splendor  before  the  enraptured  vision  of  the  disembodied 
spirits.  The  overpowering  joys  of  the  better  world  will  so 
soften  the  tread  of  cycles,  and  deaden  the  grating  thunders 
of  revolving  ages,  that  the  resurrection  will  take  the  sainted 
spirit  with  surprise. 

The  promised  and  kingly  triumphs  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  are  proofs  of  this  doctrine,  "  He  must  reign  till  he  hath 
all  enemies  under  his  feet.  The  last  enemy  that  shall  be 
destroyed  is  death."  "I  will  ransom  them  from  the  power 
of  the  grave ;  I  will  redeem  them  from  death  ;  O  death,  I 
will  be  thy  plague  :  O  grave,  I  will  be  thy  destruction." 
Jesus  announced  himself  as  the  Saviour  and  King  of  the  world. 
If  he  is  our  Saviour,  he  must  save  us  from  sin  and  its  results. 
Death  is  the  result  of  sin,  and  if  he  delivers  us  not  from  its 
power,  the  whole  is  a  failure — he  is  not  our  Saviour,  the  one 
promised  us  by  the  prophets,  and  the  one  the  necessities  of 
the  case  demanded. 

If  he  is  our  King,  and  his  kingdom  is  to  be  supreme, 
universal,  and  absolute  according  to  promise,  he  must  rule 


366  SERMONS. 

over  us,  over  his  enemies,  and  over  ours.  Dei.th  is  his 
enemy,  and  our  enemy,  and  if  he  conquer  not  it,  again  the 
whole  is  a  failure — he  is  not  our  King — our  preaching  is 
vain  and  your  faith  is  vain. 

Death  and  the  grave  are  our  foes.  Death's  ghastly  and 
shadowy  form  rises  to  heaven  and  throws  its  awful  shadow 
upon  all  our  hopes.  The  grave  darkly  gapes  at  our  feet 
every  step  of  life's  journey.  But  Christ  our  federal  represen- 
tative is  conqueror.  He  was  taken  down  from  the  cross  a 
bloody  corpse,  and  borne  off  to  the  grave.  Hell  exulted. 
Death  waved  his  black  banner  in  triumph.  The  light  of  im- 
mortality leaped  up  in  one  exhilarating  flash,  then  sank  to  a 
waning  spark ;  sighs  ran  along  amid  the  bones  of  the  patri- 
archs, and  a  wail  of  woe  rang  in  the  sepulchres  of  the  dead. 
Had  he  never  left  Death's  dreary  domain,  the  grave  would 
have  devoured  all  the  race,  and  retained  them,  in  its  horrid 
jaws  forever.  The  sceptre  of  Death  would  have  been  uni- 
versal, and  he  King  without  a  rival.  No  ray  of  light  would 
ever  have  broken  into  the  arcana  of  the  lonely  tomb  to  tell 
of  coming  day.  No  welcome  voice  would  ever  have  rung 
along  its  damp  and  dismal  galleries,  and  pealed  in  joyful 
echoes  amid  its  mouldy  arches  to  break  the  eternal  slumber 
of  its  sleepers. 

The  dying  Christian  might  turn  his  eyes  and  look  out  of 
the  window  of  his  chamber  upon  the  sunshine,  the  old  famil- 
iar landscape  skirting  his  home,  and  lift  his  withered  arm 
and  point  his  livid  and  chilled  finger,  and  say,  "  Farewell 
forever."  He  might  gaze  with  hollow  and  dimning  eye  upon 
the  faces  of  loved  ones,  fast  receding  from  his  vision,  stand- 
ing around  his  bed,  whose  recollections  are  rapidly  paling 
upon  his  memory,  and  say,  "  Farewell  forever."  He  might 
reach  out  his  cold  and  trembling  hand  and  grasp  the  hand 
of  her  who  has  travelled  by  his  side  from  vigorous  youth  till 
both  are  old  and  gray, — not  as  the  pledge  of  a  coming  union 


THE   RESURRECTION   OF  THE   HUMAN   BODY.     36; 

for  one  now  breaking,  but  to  feel  its  pressure  for  the  last 
time,  and  to  repeat  in  sepulchral  whispers  of  saddest  woe, 
"  My  wife,  farewell  forever." 

But  Jesus  met  Death  in  Death's  own  territory,  and  per- 
mitted himself  to  be  captured,  that  he  might  lead  captivity 
captive.  He  went  with  the  Pale  Monarch  to  the  silent 
darkness  of  the  tomb,  but  it  was  to  undermine  its  strong- 
holds, and  kindle  the  star  of  resurrection  in  its  murky  vaults 
— to  cement  the  past  to  the  future  and  pledge  Omnipotence 
for  a  reunion.  He  plucked  the  sting  from  Death,  took  his 
keys,  broke  his  crown,  chained  the  monster  to  his  chariot 
wheels,  and  mounted  aloft  to  heaven  a  Conqueror.  My 
hearers,  the  keys  of  the  grave  are  in  higher  hands. 

If  there  be  no  resurrection,  Christianity  is  not  adapted  to 
all  our  wants.  It  fails  to  meet  the  aspirations  and  desires  of 
our  constitutional  being,  therefore  has  not  all  the  elements 
necessary  to  make  us  happy.  And  if  it  is  not  grounded  upon 
the  wants  of  universal  human  nature,  it  is  a  failure.  Can  the 
best  of  you  look  upon  your  death  as  an  eternal  sleep  ?  your 
grave  as  an  eternal  resting-place  ?  can  you  bid  without  re- 
gret the  bodies  in  which  you  have  tabernacled  so  long  an 
eternal  farewell  ?  Can  you  bid  the  bodies  of  your  friends  an 
eternal  adieu,  without  the  pangs  of  the  keenest  sorrow  ? 

Tell  the  young  wife,  widowed  by  this  terrible  war,  as  she 
rushes  with  dishevelled  tresses  amid  the  promiscuous  ditches 
of  the  battlefield,  crammed  with  mutilated  dead,  that  her  hus- 
band will  never  rise,  and  her  heart  is  saddened  for  life.  Tell 
the  sister,  as  she  gazes  upon  the  shattered  body  and  obliterated 
features  of  a  brother  beloved,  that  that  form  and  face  will 
never  be  restored  to  happy  recognition  again.  Tell  the 
mother,  who  baptized  her  boy  with  blessings  and  sent  him  to 
the  bloody  "front,"  where  he  fell  and  was  buried,  uncoffmed, 
in  some  unknown  grave,  with  no  block,  stone,  or  vine  to  mark 
his  resting-place,  that  he  never  will  come  to  her  arms  again. 


368  SERMONS. 

Tell  the  bereaved — fathers,  mothers,  widows,  children — that 
there  will  be  no  resurrection,  and  a  universal  shriek  will  rend 
the  air  and  crack  the  vault  of  heaven,  till  God  hears  and 
feels,  and  angels  weep.  Earth  will  put  on  weeds  of  mourn- 
ing, and  like  Rachel  of  old  go  down  to  the  Judgment  weep- 
ing for  her  children. 

"  With  what  body  do  they  come  ?  "  The  same  body  which 
dies.  I  assume  the  bold  Scriptural  ground  that  every  es- 
sential element  of  it  will  be  raised  though  its  particles  be 
scattered  over  earth  and  sea.  Hear  the  evidence  of  the 
mighty  Paul,  the  chiefest  of  the  Apostles  :  "It  is  sown  in 
corruption,  it  is  raised  in  incorruption  ;  it  is  sown  in  dis- 
honor, it  is  raised  in  glory ;  it  is  sown  in  weakness,  it  is 
raised  in  power ;  it  is  sown  a  natural  body,  it  is  raised  a 
spiritual  body."  (i  Cor.  xv.  42-44.)  The  conclusion  is  clear: 
the  same  body  which  is  sown  in  corruption,  dishonor,  and 
weakness  will  be  raised  in  incorruption,  glory,  and  power. 
The  same  body  which  is  sown  a  natural  body,  will  be  raised 
a  spiritual  body.  Not  a  similar  body  but  the  same  body. 
Again  :  "  This  corruptible  must  put  on  incorruption,  and 
this  mortal  must  put  on  immortality."  "  This  corruptible" 
■ — as  strong  as  words  can  make  it.  The  Lord  "  shall  change 
our  vile  body."  (Phil.  iii.  21.)  "  All  that  are  in  the  graves 
shall  hear  his  voice,  and  shall  come  forth."  On  any  other 
hypothesis  there  is  no  resurrection  at  all. 

Is  Christ's  body  to  be  the  model?  The  ineffable  bright- 
ness of  His  glory  shone  above  the  noonday  sun  and  blinded 
Saul  of  Tarsus.  Saint  John  saw  Him  in  the  midst  of  seven 
golden  lamps,  "  clothed  with  a  garment  down  to  his  foot," 
girded  with  "a  golden  girdle,'"'  His  head  environed  with  a 
radiating  aureola,  His  eyes  ablaze  with  Omniscience,  His 
feet  glowing  like  a  furnace,  His  voice  as  the  sound  of  many 
waters.  The  inimitable  Prototype  of  celestial  glory  and 
regal  magnificence,  whose  lightest  shades  defy  the  painter's 


THE   RESURRECTION   OF  THE   HUMAN   BODY.     369 

pencil,  were  the  painter  an  angel.  Like  Him  ?  O  God  ! 
shall  we  ever  attain  to  such  perfection?  me?  you?  Like 
Him  ?  "  Christ  shall  change  our  vile  body,  that  it  may  be 
fashioned  like  unto  his  glorious  body." 

Finally,  "  How  are  the  dead  raised  up  ?  "  Inquiring 
humanity  asks  the  question,  doubting  philosophy  asks  it,  in- 
fidelity asks  it,  Christianity  asks  it.  Paul  answers  it  :  "Ac- 
cording to  the  working  whereby  he  is  able  even  to  subdue 
all  things  unto  himself."  God's  power  is  pledged  for  its  per- 
formance. That  Power  which  made  systems,  and  holds  them 
in  awful  and  perpetual  balance.  That  Power  which  con- 
founded chaos  with  order,  and  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
universe  deep  down  upon  nothing,  and  upreared  its  columns, 
towering  into  empty  space,  wreathed  them  with  constellations 
of  worlds,  and  propped  against  the  throne  of  God.  That 
Power  which  carpeted  creation's  temple  with  emerald,  roofed 
it  with  azure,  and  lit  it  up  with  ten  thousand  suns.  That 
Power  which  drives  planets  along  their  orbits  and  hurls  the 
erratic  comet  to  kindle  its  fires  upon  the  black  altars  of  night 
where  suns  never  shine.  That  Power  which  shakes  the 
earth,  shivers  its  granite,  ruptures  its  strata,  overturns  its 
mountains,  and  upheaves  its  valleys.  That  Power  which 
binds  lightnings  to  its  chariot  and  rides  upon  the  tempest. 
— That  Power  is  pledged  to  raise  me  from  the  dead.  Can 
it  do  it? 

Ah !  angels  could  have  philosophically  descanted  with 
more  apparent  reason  upon  the  impossibility  of  creation 
before  the  fiat  of  God  peopled  immensity  with  worlds  and 
intelligences,  than  you  can  philosophize  against  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  dead.  Are  there  mysteries  ?  Are  there  difficul- 
ties ?  Paul  refers  them  all  to  the  power  of  God  for  an 
ample  solution.  You  see  as  great  wonders  every  day.  Cast 
a  seed  in  the  ground  ;  it  enlarges  :  in  a  few  days  the  germ 
sends  up  a  stem  and  down  a  root :  the  radicles  imbibe  the 
16* 


370  SERMONS. 

nutriment,  and  the  stem  enlarges  and  mounts  upward  as  if 
by  magic  :  soon  its  long  conical  blades  droop  in  verdant 
curves  to  the  earth,  and  the  flower  upon  its  top  drops  a  dust 
upon  the  silken  flower  on  its  side,  and  a  long  ear  of  golden 
corn  rewards  the  farmer's  toil — every  grain  of  which  pos- 
sesses the  same  reproductive  power  of  the  first.  An  acorn 
bursts,  and  a  deep-rooted,  gnarled,  and  knotted  giant,  who 
rears  his  trunk  to 'heaven,  whose  mossy  limbs  and  crested 
foliage  nod  majestically  among  the  clouds,  is  the  result.  Veg- 
etable life  and  existence  are  crowded  with  wonders. 

The  phenomena  of  animal  life,  its  causes,  productions, 
nature,  maintenance,  reproduction,  are  full  of  mysteries  and 
difficulties  solving  and  unfolding  every  hour.  Earth,  air,  and 
water  are  replete  with  mysteries,  and  instinct  with  difficul- 
ties. Every  moment  is  a  seeming  eternity  of  impossibil- 
ities ;  every  atom  a  universe  of  overwhelming  difficulties. 
For  man,  who  is  himself  a  microcosm  of  wonders,  standing 
amid  a  world  of  wonders,  profound  and  confounding,  to 
present  the  difficulties  involved  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
body  as  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  its  accomplishment,  is  at 
once  preposterous.  Though  your  bones  may  lie  bleaching 
in  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  or  fossilized  be  deeply  imbedded 
in  rock  ;  though  your  dust  may  be  scattered  over  continents, 
transmuted  into  animals  or  plants,  diffused  in  the  air,  diffused 
in  the  water,  or  mingled  with  clay,  God's  power  is  able  to 
raise  you  from  the  dead,  and  is  pledged  to  do  it. 

That  Power  sooner  or  later  will  be  exercised.  The  last 
day  will  come.  The  sun  un wheeled  will  drag  along  the  jar- 
ring heavens  and  refuse  to  shine.  The  stars  will  hide  their 
faces,  and  the  moon  will  roll  up  in  the  heavens  red  as  blood, 
and  hang  her  crimson  livery  upon  the  wing  of  the  night. 
Earth  will  tremble  upon  her  axis,  and  huge  mountains  of  woe 
will  drift  and  lodge  upon  her  heart.  A  mighty  angel  with  a 
face  like  the  sun,  clothed  with  clouds,  and  crowned  with  a 


THE  RESURRECTION   OF  THE   HUMAN  BODY.     371 

rainbow,  and  shod  with  wings  of  fire,  will  cleave  the  heavens 
in  his  lightning  track,  and  descending  with  his  right  foot 
upon  the  troubled  sea,  and  his  left  foot  upon  the  quaking 
earth,  lift  his  hand  to  heaven,  and  swear  by  the  Judge  of 
the  quick  and  the  dead  that  time  shall  be  no  longer.  Old 
Time,  the  father  of  centuries  and  the  tomb-builder  of  gen- 
erations, will  drop  his  broken  scythe  and  break  his  glass,' 
careen  and  fall  a  giant  in  ruins. 

The  trump  of  God  will  then  sound.  Its  resonant  thun- 
ders will  roll  through  all  the  lengths  and  breadths  of  Death's 
vast  empire,  and  its  old  walls  and  arches  crammed  with 
buried  millions  will  fall  in  crashing  ruins.  The  dingy  king 
will  drop  his  sceptre  ringing  in  fragments  upon  the  damp 
pavements  of  the  grave,  and  fly  howling  from  his  tottering 
throne  down,  down  to  Erebus.  The  antiquated  dead  will 
start  into  life  from  their  ashy  urns  and  funeral  pyres.  Pyra- 
mids of  granite  and  crypts  of  marble  will  be  rent  in  twain 
to  let  the  rising  bodies  come.  Mummies  will  fling  off  the 
trappings  of  centuries,  and  pour  from  their  vaulted  cham- 
bers. Inquisitions  will  rock  upon  their  foundations  and 
revivified  dead  will  stream  from  their  dungeons.  Abbeys, 
cathedrals,  grottoes,  and  caverns  will  be  vocal  with  life. 
Wanderers  will  shake  off  their  winding-sheets  of  sand,  and 
rise  from  the  face  of  the  desert.  Human  bones  will  break 
away  from  their  coral  fastenings  ;  mermaids  draped  in  drip- 
ping weeds  will  mourn  the  evacuation  of  all  their  caves  ;  old 
ocean  will  heave  and  swell  with  teeming  millions. 

The  battlefields  of  the  world  :  Troy  and  Thermopylae, 
Talavera  and  Marengo,  Austerlitz  and  Waterloo,  Marathon 
and  Missolonghi ;  the  battle-fields  of  Europe,  Asia,  Africa, 
and  America,  will  reproduce  their  armies,  and  crowd  the 
world  with  revivified  legions.  Indian  maidens  will  leap  from 
the  dust  of  our  streets,  and  our  houses  overturning  will  let 
their  chiefs  to  Judgment.     Abraham  will  shake  off  the  dust 


372  SERMONS. 

of  Machpelah,  and  arise  with  Sarah  by  his  side.  David  will 
come  with  harp  in  hand.  The  reformer  of  Geneva  and  the 
apostle  of  Methodism  will  come  side  by  side. 

Our  village  church-yards  and  famil}'  burial-grounds  will 
be  deserted.  All  will  come  :  patriarchs,  prophets,  Jews  and 
Gentiles,  Christians  and  heathens,  bond  and  free,  rich  and 
poor — fathers,  mothers,  children,  sisters,  brothers,  husbands, 
wives — all  from  Adam  down  will  come  forth.  And  all  the 
good  all  around  the  world  all  together  will  hail  this  redemp- 
tion's grand  consummation,  with  one  proud  anthem,  whose 
choral  thunders,  rolling  along  all  the  paths  of  space,  will  shake 
the  universe  with  its  bursting  chorus  :  "  O  death,  where  is 
thy  sting  ?     O  grave,  where  is  thy  victory  ?  * 


SERMON  XXV  n.~A  fragment. 

THE     DYING     YEAR:  —  WATCHNIGHT. 

THIS  is  the  first  Sabbath  and  the  first  day  in  1871.  Last 
night  the  Old  Year  died. — Did  you  see  that  old  man, 
so  pale,  frail,  and  ghostly,  who  stood  out  upon  the  bleak  and 
icy  hills  last  night,  leaning  in  his  decrepitude  upon  the  feeble 
arm  of  his  last  surviving  but  dying  child,  the  departing  De- 
cember ?  The  chaplet  of  buds,  flowers,  and  fruit,  wreathed 
around  his  brow  by  Spring,  Summer,  and  Autumn  were 
frosted  by  Winter ;  his  sandals  were  old  and  covered  with 
snow  and  mud ;  his  garments  were  tattered,  and  glistening 
with  sleet  were  folded  around  his  wasted  form  ;  his  gray  locks 
were  frosty ;  his  breath  was  cold ;  and  his  pulse  quivered 
like  an  icy  thread  in  his  chilled  and  shrunken  arm. 

Who  was  he  ?  He  was  the  child  of  remorseless  Time. 
He  was  one  of  a  numerous  family  whose  genealogy  presents 
us  no  two  contemporaries.  The  birth  of  one  has  always 
been  preceded  by  the  death  of  the  solitary  other.  The  wail- 
ing requiems  over  the  death  of  the  one  have  always  ended 
in  lullabies  over  the  cradle  of  its  successor.  Who  was  he  ? 
He  was  the  Old  Year.  Last  night,  Eternity's  horologe  tolled 
out  low  twelve  upon  its  sounding  bell.  It  was  his  death-knell 
— and  at  that  lonely  hour  while  we  slept,  when  cadaverous 
ghosts  are  fabled  to  creep  amid  the  ivied  ruins  of  castles  old, 
and  shriek  through  the  crevices  of  tottering  church  belfries, 
and  dry  old  bones  shake  and  clatter  in  their  vaults  in  church- 
yards, he  died,  and  the  spirits  of  winter  hearsed  him  in  a  cold 


374  SERMONS. 

cloud  drawn  by  boreal  winds,  and  drove  him  out  to  sepul- 
chral oblivion  and  buried  him  in  a  grave  whose  cerements  are 
eternal.  He  will  return  no  more — no,  forever.  Farewell, 
Old  Year !  let  thy  cold  ghost  mingle  with  the  shades  of  thy 
predecessors,  but  let  it  not  come  back,  oh,  let  it  not  come 
back,  to  haunt  us  when  we  die. 

Gone,  but  he  has  left  his  footprints.  The  lovely  babe 
the  mother  so  fondly  kissed  last  New  Year  is  not  here  this 
morning.  It  simply  came,  smiled,  then  wept  and  departed. 
It  seemed  to  come  from  heaven,  and  to  stay  just  long  enough 
to  make  us  love  it,  and  then  to  return.  Its  mission  appears 
to  have  been  to  gather  up  our  affections  and  carry  them  back 
to  heaven  with  it,  to  make  us  love  heaven  more,  and  earth 
less.  Some  beautiful  girls  and  noble  boys,  whose  laugh  and 
shout  enlivened  our  homes  during  the  last  Christmas  and 
New  Year  holidays,  are  not  with  us  to-day.  Dreamless,  they 
sleep  beneath  the  snows  of  the  winter  in  our  neighboring 
cemeteries,  and  foul  decay  has  marred  their  lovely  forms. 
In  placing  the  house  in  order  for  these  holidays  we  have 
found  a  toy,  a  shoe,  a  hat,  a  book,  unclaimed  and  ownerless, 
which  made  us  weep  anew.  Oh,  shall  they  ever  live  again  ? 
The  old  arm-chair  which  sat  in  the  corner,  and  was  tenanted 
by  smiling  old  age  one  year  ago,  is  empty  now — its  occu- 
pant is  gone  and  some  of  us  are  fatherless.  The  head  of  the 
table  is  also  vacated,  the  dust  lies  heavily  upon  the  mantel- 
piece, and  disorder  has  crept  into  the  family  chamber,  for 
with  some  of  us  mother  is  gone  too.  Some  friend  is  gone, 
some  familiar  footfall  is  missed,  some  well-known  voice  is 
hushed.  The  receding  year  has  touched  us  somewhere. 
We  are  a  year  older,  a  year  nearer  the  grave.  This  year 
may  land  us  in  heaven,  or  sink  us  in  hell.  Are  you  ready  to 
die  ?     If  die  we  must,  this  year,  may  we  ascend  to  heaven. 

But  as  the  misty  spirit  of  the  Old  Year  wreathed  away  into 
the  dark  dim  past,  the  angels  of  God  sang  the  birth  hymn  of 


THE   DYING   YEAR.  375 

the  New  Year.  And  still  you  may  hear  the  inspiring  touches 
of  the  dying  music  still  lingering  in  the  mountain-tops,  and 
quivering  gently  in  the  happy  air,  and  coursing  sweetly  the 
nerve  corridors  leading  to  the  mind's  sensorium  to  greet  the 
human  soul.  18  71  is  here.  How  many  years  since  the 
world  was  made  I  know  not,  neither  does  any  man.  How 
many  years  since  man  was  made  I  know  not — our  chronolo- 
gies cannot  be  absolutely  relied  upon.  But  it  is  eighteen 
hundred  and  seventy-one  years  since  the  infant  Saviour  was 
born,  wrapped  in  swaddling-clothes,  and  laid  to  sleep  in  a 
manger ;  eighteen  hundred  and  thirty-eight  years  since  His 
crucifixion,  burial,  resurrection,  and  ascension  to  heaven. 

The  New  Year  is  here,  and  with  him  his  children.  Two 
come  crowned  with  glittering  frost,  and  robes  of  trailing  snow ; 
two  with  tempests  in  their  fists,  and  stray  sunbeams  upon 
their  brows ;  four  clothed  in  green  enamelled  with  buds, 
flowers,  and  fruit,  and  straited  with  golden  ripeness ;  three 
with  robes  of  red,  yellow,  and  purple  ;  one  in  freezing  nudity 
with  a  sceptre  of  ice.  Before  the  first  may  pass  we  may  be 
dead,  and  the  remaining  eleven  may  dance  their  rounds  upon 
our  graves. 

No  year  has  ever  passed  without  some  one  dying  whom  we 
knew  and  loved.  Every  succeeding  year  marks  its  number 
and  name  upon  some  tombstone  in  our  cemetery.  Our 
burial-grounds  keep  up  the  record  of  the  ages.  This  year 
will  be  the  date  of  the  death  of  some  one  present.  1871  will 
be  chiselled  in  the  marble  which  will  mark  some  of  our 
graves.     Who  ? 


LECTURES. 


LECTURE  I. 


ELIJAH. 


"  And  the  woman  said  to  Elijah,  Now  by  this  I  know  that  thou  art  a  man 
of  God,  and  that  the  word  of  the  Lord  in  thy  mouth  is  truth." — i  Kings, 
xvii.  24. 

THE  widow  of  Zarephath  said  to  Elijah,  "  I  know  that 
thou  art  a  man  of  God."  No  higher  compliment 
could  be  passed  upon  any  man.  To  be  pronounced  profi- 
cient in  any  science,  art,  or  laudable  pursuit,  is  a  desirable 
compliment.  To  be  pronounced  a  finished  scholar,  a  con- 
sistent philosopher,  a  profound  metaphysician,  an  erudite 
theologian,  a  logical  and  elocutionary  preacher,  a  successful 
lawyer  or  physician,  the  consummate  statesman  and  diplo- 
matist, are  indeed  high  compliments;  but  to  be  truthfully 
pronounced  a  man  of  God,  is  higher  than  all  of  them.  Such 
was  Elijah's  character.     Let  us  evolve  and  elucidate  it. 

The  Bible  is  a  rare  old  book,  and  teaches  in  many  ways. 
It  teaches  by  declaration,  explication,  and  exemplification. 
The  exemplification  of  its  teachings  by  the  living  characters 
who  walk  along  its  pages,  is  its  most  successful  mode  of  in- 
struction, and  cannot  be  adverted  to  attentively  without 
profit.  Every  peculiar  age  has  developed  its  peculiar  spirits  : 
especial  men  raised  up  by  the  Providence  of  God,  adapted 
in  their  characters  as  teachers  and  exemplars  of  virtue,  to 
the  peculiar  necessities  of  the  ages  in  which  they  lived. 
Noah,  Moses,  David,  and  Paul,  were  the  men  for  their  times. 


380  LECTURES. 

Especial  and  peculiar  times  have  demanded  especial  and 
peculiar  men  :  especial  and  peculiar  conditions  of  the  church 
have  demanded  especial  and  peculiar  types  of  religious  char- 
acter.    Elijah  was  emphatically  the  man  for  his  age. 

With  the  solitary  exception  recorded  in  Second  Chronicles, 
twenty-first  chapter,  Elijah  appears  to  have  exercised  his 
functions  as  a  prophet  only  among  the  ten  tribes,  called  in 
this  part  of  their  Bible  history  the  "  Children  of  Israel,"  to 
distinguish  them  from  the  children  of  Judah  and  Benjamin, 
who  still  adhered  to  the  dynasty  of  David,  and  from  whom 
they  had  separated  immediately  after  the  death  of  Solomon. 
Constituting  a  distinct  government  from  the  children  of 
Judah  and  Benjamin,  the  national  and  political  interests  of 
the  ten  tribes  indisposed  them  to  go  to  Jerusalem  to  worship, 
where  God  had  placed  His  name.  Jerusalem  was  not  only 
the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  but  the 
metropolis  of  the  Theocratic  State.  This  indisposition  to  go 
to  Jerusalem,  upon  their  parts — in  connection  with  the  ten- 
dency to  idolatry  which  was  characteristic  of  the  times, 
made  their  apostasy  from  the  true  and  living  God  more  easy 
and  natural  than  those  whose  every  interest,  as  well  as  the 
obligations  of  their  religion,  caused  to  go  to  Jerusalem  several 
times  in  a  year.  In  fact,  the  successive  kings  of  the  ten 
tribes,  to  prevent  the  Israelites  from  going  to  Jerusalem 
to  worship,  the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah  and  Ben- 
jamin, and  to  alienate  as  much  as  possible  the  affections 
of  the  people  from  the  dynasty  of  David  and  Solomon  which 
reigned  in  Jerusalem,  built  temples  and  introduced  the  idola- 
trous worship  of  the  surrounding  nations. 

At  the  time  when  Elijah  appeared  the  children  of  Israel 
were  very  corrupt.  Ahab  was  their  king.  He  was  a  thor- 
ough idolater,  both  in  his  principles  and  practice  ;  and  he 
compelled  the  people  to  idolatrous  worship  by  regular  laws. 
He  also  married  "  Jezebel,  the  daughter  of  Ethbaal,  the  King 


ELIJAH.  381 

of  the  Zidonians" — the  idolatrous  daughter  of  the  idolatrous 
king  of  an  idolatrous  people,  who,  herself,  cruelly  and  fanat- 
ically persecuted  the  true  religion,  and  who  sustained, 
protected,  and  remunerated  idolatry  throughout  the  king- 
dom. While  Ahab  built  an  altar  and  temple  for  Baal,  and 
enjoined  Baal's  worship  upon  the  people,  Jezebel  and  her 
women  worshipped  Ashtoreth,  the  same  with  the  Venus  of 
the  Romans,  who,  in  all  nations,  however  titled  and  named, 
was  the  personification  of  the  most  forbidding  uncleanness, 
obscenity,  and  sensuality.  This  goddess  had  four  hundred 
priests  who  constituted  a  part  of  Jezebel's  family,  and  ate 
regularly  at  her  table.  The  example  of  such  a  king,  and 
such  a  queen,  hurried  the  people  into  the  deepest  pits  of 
moral  degradation. 

Yet  there  were  a  few  in  the  nation  who  still  worshipped  the 
true  and  living  God,  though  secretly;  and  still  a  school  of 
true  prophets.  The  Lord,  Himself,  said,  there  were  "  seven 
thousand,"  meaning  several  thousand,  of  Israel,  whose  knees 
had  "not  bowed  unto  Baal,"  and  whose  mouths  had  "  not 
kissed  him."  Yet  the  moral  prostitution  of  the  people  as  a 
whole  was  general,  and  the  moral  tendency  downwards.  At 
this  period,  Elijah,  of  the  city  of  Tishbeh,  within  the  boun- 
daries of  the  tribe  of  Gad,  in  the  land  of  Gilead,  beyond 
Jordan,  suddenly  made  his  appearance,  a  man  for  the  times. 
He  was  one  of  the  most  exemplary  human  characters  upon 
record.  Noah  and  Lot  were  guilty  of  drunkenness ;  Abra- 
ham and  Isaac  of  falsehood  ;  Jacob  of  fraud ;  Moses  of  ar- 
rogancy  at  the  rock  of  Meribah  ;  Aaron  of  idolatry  at  the 
foot  of  Sinai ;  Jephthah  of  rashness  ;  Samson  of  cruelty  and 
revenge ;  Eli  of  laxity  of  family  discipline  ;  David  of  adul- 
tery and  murder  ;  Solomon  of  the  most  reckless  and  stupen- 
dous apostasy  ;  Job  of  self-complacency,  bitter  recrimina- 
tion, and  sometimes  a  want  of  reverence  for  God  ;  and 
Jonah   of  petulance,  presumption,  disobedience,  and  culpa- 


382  LECTURES. 

ble  stupidity  ;  yet  this  holy  man,  living  in  one  of  the  corrupt- 
est  ages  of  the  world,  exhibited  a  character  so  pure,  that 
some  of  the  commentators  and  biblicists  have  thought  him 
an  angel  incarnated.  He  is  gone  from  earth,  yet  no  records 
or  researches  have  ever  revealed  the  least  spot  or  blemish 
upon  the  escutcheon  of  his  personal  and  moral  worth,  to 
dim  the  radiance  of  his  life,  or  pale  the  splendor  of  his  ex- 
ample.    He  was  a  man  of  God. 

In  developing  Elijah's  character  from  his  scriptural  biog- 
raphy, I  present  to  you  :  1st.  His  moral  courage.  There 
is  a  difference  between  bravery  and  courage.  Bravery  is 
constitutional,  courage  is  acquired.  Bravery  is  constitu- 
tional, therefore  entitles  the  possessor  to  no  merit  or  reward  ; 
courage  is  acquired,  and  being  an  acquirement  implies  volun- 
tary action  upon  the  part  of  the  agent,  therefore  does  entitle 
the  possessor  to  both  merit  and  reward.  Elijah's  courage  so 
positively  exemplified  in  his  history  was  moral — the  highest 
and  most  splendid  form  of  true  courage.  As  distinguished 
from  bravery  it  was  courage,  because  it  was  a  moral  quality  ; 
and  man  being  fallen,  all  good  moral  qualities,  with  certain 
modifications  and  limitations,  are  acquired,  not  constitu- 
tional ;  it  was  a  moral  quality,  because  it  was  an  exhibition 
of  moral  character  formed  within  the  compass  of  moral  rela- 
tions, and  exerted  against  evil,  and  in  defence  of  the  good. 
Moral  courage  is  defined  to  be  "  that  firmness  of  principle 
which  prompts  and  enables  a  person  to  do  what  he  deems  to 
be  his  duty,  although  it  may  subject  him  to  severe  censure, 
or  the  loss  of  public  favor." 

Elijah's  first  appearance,  which  was  as  sudden  as  if  he  had 
fallen  from  heaven,  was  an  illustration  of  his  moral  courage. 
Ahab  was  the  head  and  front  of  Israel's  iniquity,  and  though 
he  was  a  wicked,  cruel,  and  capricious  monarch,  and  held 
the  lives  of  all  the  subjects  "of  his  kingdom  in  his  hands — as 
far  as  any  man  can  be  said  to  have  such  power  over  human 


ELIJAH.  383 

life, — yet  Elijah  goes  directly  to  him  and  pronounces  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  a  terrible  judgment  upon  him  and  the 
nation  for  their  sins.  He  does  not  write  it  and  nail  it  to  the 
gates  of  Samaria,  to  the  portals  of  the  cities  of  Israel ;  not 
upon  the  trees  at  the  passes  of  Jordan,  or  along  the  high- 
ways ;  he  does  not  preach  it  to  the  shepherds  upon  the 
plains,  or  the  peasant  in  his  cottage  ;  not  to  the  poor,  the  un- 
armed, the  irresponsible — not  to  the  people  ;  but  he  tracks  the 
stream  of  Israel's  idolatry  to  its  corrupting  and  monarchal 
fountain,  and  presents  himself  in  propria  persona  before  the 
haughty  Ahab  himself,  and  regardless*  of  life  or  liberty,  the 
kingly  frown  or  royal  anathema,  with  eyes  flashing  fire 
steadily  fixed  upon  the  confused  and  cowering  face  of  the 
startled  monarch,  he  lifts  his  voice  like  the  trump  of  doom  : 
"  As  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  li-veth,  before  whom  I  stand, 
there  shall  not  be  dew  nor  rain  these  years,  but  according  to 
my  word." 

The  infliction  of  the  awful  judgment,  pronounced  by  the 
prophet,  fell  heavily  upon  the  land-  of.  Israel.  The  springs 
and  brooks  dried,  the  grass  and  herbage  of  the  field  withered 
and  pulverized  to  dust ;  there  was  no  bread  in  the  granaries 
of  Asher,  the  olive  yielded  no  oil,  and  the  vines  of  the  vine- 
yard drooped  fruitless  and  dead.  Dusty  desolation  reigned 
throughout  the  inheritance  of  the  ten  tribes ;  there  was  no 
food  for  man  or  beast ;  famine  was  sore,  especially  in  Samaria 
the  capital.  The  king  and  queen,  in  place  of  repenting  of 
their  sins,  and  ordaining  a  general  fast,  and  causing  the  peo- 
ple to  repent,  and  thus  strike  at  the  root  of  all  their  difficul- 
ties, attributed  their  sufferings  to  Elijah,  the  prophet  of  God. 
Had  they  lived  in  an  age  subsequent  to  ours,  the  future 
historian  would  have  thought  they  had  borrowed  their  prin- 
ciples from  the  habits  of  this  generation. 

Have  you  not  seen  the  sinner  bring  evil  upon  himself  by 
his  own  sin  and  recklessness,  and  then  with   assumed  inno- 


384  LECTURES. 

cency  try  to  hide  his  guilty  head  and  heart  under  the  over- 
shadowing aegis  of  that  jewel  of  a  truth  :  "  Whom  the  Lord 
loveth  he  chasteneth  "  ?  Miserable  reprobate,  trying  to  steal 
the  children's  bread.  Have  you  not  heard  him,  when  he  has 
by  his  own  conduct  brought  upon  himself  the  merited  censure 
of  the  community,  apparently  forgetting  the  true  cause,  attrib- 
ute his  unpopularity  to  envy  and  slander?  Have  you  not 
heard  the  criminal  at  the  gallows,  ignoring  his  offences 
against  the  laws  of  the  land,  blame  the  Judge,  the  Jury,  or  the 
prosecuting  attorney  for  his  fate  ?  Have  you  not  heard  the 
backslidden  professor  of  religion,  when  reproved,  proscribed, 
and  ostracized  by  his  church  for  his  offences,  overlook  his 
every  wrong  and  audaciously  declare  that  he  was  persecuted 
for  righteousness'  sake,  and  presumptuously  appropriate  the 
blessings  pronounced  by  Christ  upon  all  such  ? 

Have  you  not  heard  the  clerical  mountebank  find  the 
reason  for  the  unoccupied  pews  in  his  church  on  Sabbath 
morning — not  in  his  silly  head,  within  whose  empty  cavities 
no  idea  ever  crept,  out  of  whose  dusky  nooks  no  thought 
ever  peeped,  and  whose  osseous  dome  would  have  cracked 
quite  in  twain  had  a  syllogism  wandering  by  chance  out  of 
the  highway  of  intelligence  crowded  and  wedged  itself  in 
there  for  a  night, — but  in  the  ignorance  of  his  hearers  to 
understand  and  appreciate  what  he  believed  to  be  his  pro- 
found and  philosophical  expositions  of  Bible  truth  ?  You 
never  knew  such  a  man  to  suspect  the  character  of  the  food 
he  served,  but  you  have  heard  him  rate  most  lustily  the  taste 
and  appetite  of  them  he  wished  to  feed  with  his  unsavory, 
unnutritious,  indigestible  busks.  Have  you  not  heard  the 
medical  charlatan,  when  a  patient  died  who  might  have  lived 
had  he  been  undoctored,  in  the  learned  nomenclature  of 
his  profession  which  metamorphosed  his  hearers  into  gaping 
monuments  of  unspeakable  wonder,  pass  by  his  own  ineffi- 
ciency, and  animadvert  upon  the  defects  of  nurses,  the  blun- 


ELIJAH.  385 

ders  of  druggists,  the  mysteries  of  Physiology,  the  marvels  of 
Pathology,  the  complexity  of  diagnoses,  the  arcana  of  Materia 
Medica,  till  the  hearers  felt  profoundly  grateful  for  deaths 
and  funerals,  and  were  willing  ever  after  to  ignore  the  vis 
medicatrix  natures  and  the  prophylactic,  that  they  might  be 
the  happy  beneficiaries  of  the  doctor's  therapeutics  ? 

Attributing  the  evils  of  the  famine  to  Elijah,  and  not  to  his 
and  Israel's  sins,  Ahab  sent  officers  to  seek  the  prophet  in  all 
the  surrounding  nations  and  kingdoms,  with  orders  to  arrest 
him  that  he  might  be  brought  to  punishment.  So  zealous  was 
the  king  in  his  search,  and  so  determined  upon  Elijah's  appre- 
hension, that  he  required  of  the  nations  and  kingdoms,  where 
he  prosecuted  his  quest,  an  oath  that  they  knew  not  where  he 
was.  In  the  meanwhile  Jezebel,  his  idolatrous  wife,  slew  all 
the  prophets  of  the  Lord  in  the  kingdom,  except  one  hundred, 
whom  Obadiah,  governor  of  Ahab's  house,  a  righteous  man, 
hid  in  two  caves  and  fed  with  bread  and  water. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things,  when  God  said  to  Elijah  in 
his  hiding-place,  "  Go,  show  thyself  unto  Ahab  ;  and  I  will  send 
rain  upon  the  earth."  Elijah  did  not  attempt  to  cavil  with 
Omnipotence  ;  he  did  not  say,  "  Lord,  Ahab  has  sought  me  for 
punishment  throughout  all  the  kingdoms  of  Asia  Minor  and 
Northern  Africa,  and  must  I  now  go,  voluntarily,  and  show  my- 
self unto  him  ?  "  No  :  but  the  intrepid  soldier  of  the  living 
God  immediately  girded  up  his  loins,  and  started  for  the  land 
of  Israel.  On  his  way  he  met  Obadiah,  who  was  seeking  pas- 
turage for  the  few  remaining  mules  and  horses  of  the  king, 
and  said  to  him,  "  Go,  tell  thy  lord,  Behold,  Elijah  is  here." 
Obadiah  was  perfectly  astonished  at  what  appeared  to  him 
to  be  consummate  rashness,  and  replied  substantially  : 
"  As  the  Lord  thy  God  liveth,  there  is  no  nation  or  king- 
dom whither  Ahab,  '  my  lord  hath  not  sent  to  seek  thee  ; 
and  when  they  said'  they  knew  not  where  thou  wast  he  made 
them  swear  to  the  assertion ;  '  And  now  thou  sayest,  Go,  tell 
17 


386  LECTURES. 

thy  lord,  Behold,  Elijah  is  here.'  And  while  I  am  gone  to 
tell  Ahab,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  will  carry  thee  I  know 
not  whither,  and  when  he  arrives  he  will  not  find  thee — 
and  he  has  already  heard  that  I  saved  the  lives  of  a  hun- 
dred of  the  Lord's  prophets  from  Jezebel's  general  mas- 
sacre, and  am  now  feeding  them  in  caves,  and  he  will 
slay  me  ;  yet  '  thou  sayest,  Go,  tell  thy  lord,  Behold,  Elijah 
is  here':  if  I  obey  thee,  and  Ahab  when  he  comes  finds 
thee  here,  thy  death  is  certain  ;  if  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
should  take  thee  away  in  the  meantime,  and  he  does  not  find 
thee  here,  my  death  is  probable — yet,  utterly  reckless  of 
results,  thou  sayest  '  Go,  tell  thy  lord,  Behold,  Elijah  is 
here. ' " 

Elijah  said,  "As  the  Lord  liveth,  before  whom  I  stand, 
I  will  surely  show  myself  unto  him  this  day."  Seeing  Eli- 
jah's determination,  and  having  all  the  apprehensions  about 
his  own  life  removed  by  the  prophet's  oath,  Obadiah  carried 
the  message,  and  Ahab  went  to  meet  the  prophet;  and 
when  he  saw  Elijah,  he  said,  "Art  thou  he  that  troubleth 
Israel?"  Elijah  hesitated  not  a  moment — though  he  was  in 
the  presence  of  the  man  who  sought  his  life  and  searched 
kingdoms  to  destroy  it,  and  who  commanded  all  the  re- 
sources,, of  Israel,  yet  he  hurled  back  upon  the  astonished 
king  a  flat  denial  of  the  charge,  followed  by  an  awful  accu- 
sation :  "  I  have  not  troubled  Israel ;  but  thou,  and  thy 
father's  house,  in  that  ye  have  forsaken  the  commandments 
of  the  Lord,  and  thou  hast  followed  Baalim."  He  spoke  as 
if  clothed  with  authority — and  so  he  was.  His  idolatrous 
and  regal  persecutor  felt  the  truth  of  the  accusation,  and 
stood  in  mute  awe  before  the  sublime  moral  courage  of  this 
man  of  God.  "  Send,"  said  the  prophet,  "  and  gather  to  me 
all  Israel" — that  was,  the  heads  of  the  tribes  and  families  of 
Israel — "  unto  Mount  Carmel,  and  all  the  prophets  of  Baal, 
four  hundred  and  fifty,  and  all  the  prophets  of  the  groves. 


ELIJAH.  387 

four  hundred,  which  eat  at  Jezebel's  table" — alluding  to  the 
four  hundred  priests  of  Ashtoreth,  which,  as  it  appears  from 
the  account  of  the  sacrifice  upon  Mount  Carmel,  did  not 
come. 

Ahab  obeyed,  and  now  followed  the  sublimest  exhibition 
of  moral  courage  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Mount  Carmel 
is  a  mountain  upon  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea, 
about  fifteen  hundred  feet  high.  Its  sides  are  steep  and  rocky, 
but  upon  its  top  it  is  flat.  In  the  days  of  Elijah,  upon  this 
plateau  were  the  ruins  of  an  old  altar,  supposed  to  have  been 
erected  to  God  in  the  days  of  the  Judges.  It  was  morning 
There  was  no  dew  upon  the  ground ;  and  the  sun  rising  be- 
yond Jordan  shot  in  slanting  splendor  his  scorching  beams 
athwart  the  dusty  landscapes,  his  fiery  lances  breaking  and 
shivering  against  every  rocky  bank  and  lichen  crag,  till  the 
rarefied  air  hung  quivering  and  rippling  with  heat  over  every 
valley,  hill,  and  mountain  of  the  land  of  Israel.  The  Medi- 
terranean lay  off  to  the  west  in  full  view  like  a  sea  of  liquid 
steel,  blue-heated,  under  the  fervid  sky.  The  thousands  of 
Israel  convened  by  Ahab,  with  himself,  the  four  hundred  and 
fifty  prophets  of  Baal,  and  Elijah,  the  prophet  of  God,  stood 
upon  the  summit  of  the  mountain. 

Elijah  proceeded  to  explain  to  the  people  the  reason  of  so 
extraordinary  a  convocation.  Ahab  had  charged  Elijah  with 
being  the  cause  of  the  famine  and  its  consequent  evils; 
Elijah  had  retorted  the  charge,  and  accused  Ahab  with  being 
the  cause  in  that  he  worshipped  Baal,  and  had  caused  the 
people  to  worship  him.  The  question  had  resolved  itself 
into  a  direct  issue  between  God  and  Baal.  To  settle  the  con- 
troversy, Elijah  explained,  was  the  reason  of  the  convocation 
of  the  people  that  morning — and  he  exhorted  them,  without 
halting  between  two  opinions  to  accept  the  decision  of  that 
day,  and  to  act  thereafter  upon  it.  To  bring  the  whole  mat- 
ter to  a  final  and  satisfactory  test,  he  said  to   the  people ; 


3$S  LECTURES. 

"  Ij  even  I  only,  remain  a  true  prophet  of  the  Lord ;  but 
Baal's  prophets  are  four  hundred  and  fifty  men — I  stand 
forth  to-day  in  this  test  as  the  representative  of  the  God  of 
Israel,  Baal's  prophets  stand  forth  as  the  representatives  of 
Baal — I  number  but  one,  they  number  four  hundred  and 
fifty,  therefore  in  the  test  which  I  intend  to  propose  to  settle 
this  whole  matter,  if  any  advantage  can  be  taken  by  either 
side,  they  are  numerically  the  stronger,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
advantage  of  having  your  sympathy  and  the  sympathy  of  the 
king,  and  are  able  to  use  it,  I  cannot.  Now,  let  them  build 
an  altar,  and  lay  wood  upon  it,  slay  a  bullock,  cut  the  bullock 
in  pieces,  dress  the  pieces,  lay  them  on  the  wood,  and  put 
no  fire  under,  and  I  will  do  the  same,  and  we  will  call  upon 
our  respective  Gods,  and  the  God  that  answereth  by  fire, 
let  him  be  God."  And  the  people  answered,  ....  "It 
is  well  spoken." 

The  proposal  of  Elijah  was  so  fair  and  equitable,  and  so 
warmly  sanctioned  by  the  people,  that  the  four  hundred  and 
fifty  prophets  of  Baal  were  compelled  to  accept  it ;  and  they 
built  an  altar,  laid  wood  upon  it,  slew  a  bullock,  cut  the 
bullock  in  pieces,  dressed  the  pieces,  laid  them  upon  the 
wood,  and  put  no  fire  under.  And  from  morning  till  noon, 
they  cried,  "  O  Baal,  hear  us  !  O  Baal,  hear  us  !  "  But  there 
was  no  voice,  no  fire.  And  what  must  have  seemed  most 
strange  to  the  vast  assembly  was,  that  Baal  was  the  Greek 
Apollo,  representing  the  sun,  the  source  of  light  and  heat — 
the  god  of  fire.  They  now  threw  their  bodies  into  horrid 
contortions  and  sinuous  windings,  flexing  in  and  writhing  out, 
dancing  and  leaping  around  the  altar,  yelling  like  demons, 
"  O  Baal,  hear  us  i  O  Baal,  hear  us  ! "  but  still  there  was 
no  voice,  no  fire — though  the  fiery  beams  of  the  burning  orb 
of  the  god  of  fire  were  nearly  smelting  the  rocks  of  Carmel, 
and  simmering  the  face  of  the  neighboring  sea — still,  there 
was  no  fire. 


ELIJAH.  389 

Now  Elijah  came  forward  the  very  embodiment  and  per- 
sonification of  moral  heroism.  Here  was  the  king,  who  both 
hated  and  feared  him  :  here  were  the  four  hundred  and  fifty 
prophets  of  Baal  who  thirsted  for  his  blood  :  here  were  the 
idolatrous  thousands  of  Israel  with  tempers  whetted  keen  by 
famine,  and  inclined  to  attribute  all  their  sufferings  to  him. 
Among  them,  in  all  the  magnificence  of  his  courage,  the 
prophet  stood  the  only  avowed  witness  for  the  true  and  living 
God  :  in  his  own  language  :  "  I,  even  I  only,  remain  a  prophet 
of  the  Lord  ;  but  Baal's  prophets  are  four  hundred  and  fift) 
men."  Yet  with  a  kindled  eye,  and  undaunted  mien,  he 
lifted  his  voice,  at  the  sound  of  which  infernal  malice  rankled 
in  impotent  silence,  kingly  hate  froze  spell-bound,  and  nu- 
merical power  became  powerless,  and  throwing  a  soul  of 
withering  contempt  and  scathing  irony  into  it,  he  mocked 
them,  and  said,  "  Cry  aloud :  for  he  is  a  god :  either  he  is 
talking,  or  he  is  pursuing,  or  he  is  in  a  journey,  or  peradven- 
ture  he  is  asleep,  and  must  be  awaked." 

Cry  aloud — that  Baal  is,  and  is  a  god,  there  is  no  doubt ; 
he  may  be  now  profoundly  engaged  in  receiving  his  friends, 
and  entertaining  them  ;  he  may  be  talking  and  roaring  with 
laughter  till  the  risibilities  of  all  Olympia  are  aroused  by 
the  jocose  volubility  of  the  garrulous  god.  Or,  he  may  be 
hunting,  with  bow,  arrow,  and  spear,  assisting  Hercules  to 
slay  the  lion  of  Nemea,  the  hydra  of  Lerna,  and  to  capture 
the  wild  boar  of  Erymanthus,  and  the  untamed  bull  of  Crete  ; 
or,  he  may  be  chasing  the  stag  over  the  mountain,  pursuing 
the  cony  to  his  lair,  and  upturning  the  turf  and  unearthing 
the  mole — or  such  god-like  pursuits.  Or  he  may  be  gone 
on  a  journey — being  the  driver  of  the  chariot  of  the  sun,  he 
may  be  visiting  the  boreal  or  austral  pole  to  hear  the  griev- 
ances of  their  shivering  tribes  about  a  deficiency  of  heat  in 
those  quarters — or  he  may  be  visiting  the  nude  and  swarthy 
tribes  of  the  tropics  to  hear  their  grievances  about  an  excess 


390  LECTURES. 

of  heat  with  them — or  he  may  be  gone  to  Media  to  get  the 
Magi  to  solve  the  problem  how  he  can  drive  his  chariot 
close  enough  to  the  earth  to  make  the  denizens  of  the  poles 
a  little  warmer,  without  scorching  the  Ethiopians.  Or,  worse 
than  all,  peradventure  his  godship  is  fast  asleep — it  is  now 
noon  and  he  may  have  dined  too  heartily,  he  may  have  been 
deprived  of  his  rest  last  night,  and  the  day  also  is  unusually 
warm — any  way,  he  may  be  soundly  asleep,  while  his  religion, 
worship,  and  honor  are  all  at  stake,  and  four  hundred  and 
fifty  of  his  priests  are  in  the  most  embarrassing  predicament 
any  body  of  men  were  ever  in — he  must  be  awakened — "  Cry 
aloud!" 

Stung  by  Elijah's  irony,  they  cried  the  louder,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  manner  of  the  ancient  idolaters,  they  cut  them- 
selves with  knives  and  lancets  till  the  blood  gushed  out. 
What  a  spectacle  !  four  hundred  and  fifty  men,  naked,  red, 
and  dripping  with  their  own  blood,  twisting  their  bodies  in 
eccentric  and  extravagant  shapes,  tossing  their  heads,  fling- 
ing their  hands  and  arms,  and  bounding  up  into  the  air, 
and  all  together  crying  till  the  ravines  of  Carmel  were 
resonant  with  discords,  and  every  smothering  breath  of  the 
arid  air  trembled  with  the  thunder  of  their  prayer — "  O 
Baal,  hear  us  !  O  Baal,  hear  us !  " — us  !  The  time  of  the 
evening  sacrifice  arrived,  still  they  cried  :  but  no  voice,  no 
fire.  Ashamed,  confounded,  exhausted,  and  disgraced,  they 
retired. 

Now,  Elijah  said  unto  the  people,  "  Come  near " — he 
wished  them  to  see  that  he  practised  no  artifice  to  deceive 
them.  He  then  repaired  the  fallen  altar  of  the  Lord,  and 
dug  a  trench  around  it.  He  then  laid  wood  upon  the  altar, 
slew  a  bullock,  cut  the  bullock  in  pieces,  dressed  the  pieces, 
laid  them  upon  the  wood,  and  put  no  fire  under  ;  and  com- 
manded tnat  four  barrels  of  water  should  be  poured  three 
successive  times  upon  the  whole,  till  the  very  trench  was 


ELIJAH.  3QI 

filled.  There  could  have  possibly  been  no  fire  concealed 
there.  The  intrepid  man  of  God  now  approaches  the  altar. 
The  circumstances  were  such,  that  we  can  safely  suppose 
that  the  vast  throng,  with  painful  anxiety  and  breathless 
suspense,  crowded  and  pressed  around.  The  King,  Baal, 
Baal's  prophets,  the  famine,  were  all  forgotten  :  every  eye 
was  fixed  upon  the  prophet.  There  stood  the  prophet,  the 
central,  absorbing  subject  of  the  hour.  The  smile  of  irony 
had  faded  from  his  face  ;  reverence,  solemnity,  confidence, 
and  courage,  magnificently  blended,  were  enthroned  in  co- 
ordinate sovereignty  upon  his  countenance.  He  prayed  : 
''Lord  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  of  Israel,  let  it  be  known 
this  day  that  thou  art  God  in  Israel,  and  that  I  am  thy  serv- 
ant, and  that  I  have  done  all  these  things  at  thy  word. 
Hear  me,  O  Lord,  hear  me,  that  this  people  may  know  that 
thou  art  the  Lord  God,  and  that  thou  hast  turned  their 
hearts  back  again." 

The  prayer  was  short — but  lo  !  through  the  opening  portals 
of  the  sky  a  stream  of  solid  fire,  deflecting  from  the  altar  of 
heaven,  descended  in  a  torrent  flash,  and  consumed  the  sac- 
rifice, consumed  the  wood,  consumed  the  stones  of  the  altar, 
and  the  very  dust  upon  which  it  was  erected,  and  licked  up 
the  water  in  the  trench.  The  people  immediately  fell  upon 
their  faces,  and  said,  "  The  Lord,  he  is  the  God ;  the  Lord, 
he  is  the  God."  The  time  was  so  auspicious  for  the  extir- 
pation of  the  nation's  idolatry,  that  the  prophet  instantly 
commanded  the  people  to  "take  the  prophets  of  Baal,"  and 
"  let  not  one  of  them  escape."  The  people  obeyed  him,  and 
Elijah  slew  all  of  them  at  the  brook  Kishon.  The  prophets 
of  Baal  being  slain,  the  controversy  between  the  Lord  and 
Baal  being  decided  by  the  people  in  favor  of  the  Lord,  and 
that  too  right  in  the  face  of  Ahab,  the  cause  of  the  famine 
was  removed,  and  the  heavens  were  opened,  the  rains  de- 
scended, and  Elijah  girted  up  his  loins,  taking  his  long  robe 


392 


LECTURES. 


into  his  belt,  and  ran  before  the  chariot  of  Ahab  to  the  en* 
trance  of  Jezreel. 

Emergencies  do  not  make  great  men,  as  is  generally 
believed,  but  they  develop  them.  Men  who  fail  in  emer- 
gencies, however  great  their  reputation,  lack  the  stamina 
upon  which  true  greatness  is  built,  and  are  but  mediocre 
men,  or  less.  True  greatness  is  always  equal  to  the  occa- 
sion, and  rises  with  the  occasion,  and  is  not  often  known, 
and  is  never  fully  known,  without  the  occasion  to  develop  it. 
Elijah  was  equal  to  great  emergencies  ;  and  as  the  argentum 
vivum  rises  in  its  glassy  tube  with  the  increase  of  atmos- 
pheric temperature  and  marks  off  the  degrees,  so  as  emer- 
gencies became  more  pressing  and  important  his  character 
rose  in  the  same  ratio.  And  in  the  illustration  just  adduced, 
it  towered  into  a  sublimity  which  confounded  his  adversaries. 
Other  illustrations,  however,  are  necessary,  to  develop  the 
nature  of  his  courage,  and  to  trace  it  to  its  source. 

Ahab  told  Jezebel  about  the  slaughter  of  the  prophets  of 
Baal;  and  "Jezebel  sent  a  messenger  unto  Elijah,  saying, 
So  let  the  gods  do  to  me,  and  more  also,  if  I  make  not  thy 
life  as  the  life  of  one  of  them  by  to-morrow  about  this 
time."  Temerity  would  have  stayed  and  doggedly  braved 
her  threatening.  But  Elijah,  always  fearless  in  the  perform- 
ance of  duty,  now  that  duty  was  discharged,  acted  with  pru- 
dence, which  is  always  an  element  in  true  courage,  and  arose 
and  fled  for  his  life.  Here  is  a  perfect  man  ;  courageous 
always,  yet  never  rash.  Indeed,  true  courage  can  never 
assume  the  form  of  rashness.  Courage  is  something  so  dif- 
ferent in  its  nature  from  rashness,  that  for  it  to  assume  the 
form  of  rashness  is  for  it  to  lose  its  identity,  and  become 
something  else.  Rashness  is  temerity  acted,  and  temerity  is 
a  result  of  bravery,  not  of  courage  ;  and  I  have  already 
defined  the  difference  between  bravery  and  courage  as  quali- 
ties of  character.     In  other  words,  bravery   often  degener- 


ELIJAH.  393 

ares  into  something  whose  abstract  idea  is  temerity,  and 
whose  concrete  idea  is  rashness.  True  courage,  from  its 
nature,  considered  in  relation  to  the  necessarily  superior 
development  and  power  of  the  mind  able  to  acquire  it,  is 
logically  incapable  of  such  a  degenerating  tendency. 

The  quality  in  Elijah's  character  I  am  examining  is  his 
moral  courage.  With  him  it  was  always  exerted  rationally  ; 
it  was  always  exerted  within  the  boundaries  of  duty ;  it  was 
always  exerted  in  obedience  to  moral  obligation  ;  it  was 
always  exerted  in  obedience  to  the  highest  moral  obligation. 
If  its  exercise  had  been  irrational,  it  would  not  have  been 
true  courage  ;  if  without  the  boundaries  of  duty,  it  would 
not  have  been  moral  courage  j  if  in  violation  of  moral  obli- 
gation, it  would  not  have  been  moral  courage  ;  if  in  violation 
of  the  highest  moral  obligation,  it  would  not  have  been  moral 
courage.  The  obligation  for  the  performance  of  some  acts 
rests  on  higher  reasons  than  the  obligation  for  the  perform- 
ance of  some  other  acts.  When  the  obligation  for  the  per- 
formance of  these  acts  or  works  comes  in  conflict  in  point  of 
time,  so  that  but  one  or  the  other  can  be  obeyed,  the  obliga- 
tion to  perform  the  higher  absolves  for  the  time  being  from 
the  obligation  to  perform  the  lower.  For  illustration  :  God 
requires  you  to  take  care  of  your  life.  He  also  requires 
you  to  be  religious  ;  the  obligation  to  be  religious  rests  upon 
higher  reasons  than  the  obligation  to  take  care  of  your  life  ; 
hence,  when  the  two  conflict  in  point  of  time,  you  must  be 
religious  at  the  expense  of  your  life.  When  an  obligation 
rested  upon  Elijah  to  perform  a  certain  work,  he  obeyed 
promptly  and  fearlessly,  and  independently  of  praise  or  cen- 
sure, and  at  the  very  peril  of  his  life.  When  the  obligation 
in  question  was  discharged,  and  there  was  no  obligation  for 
action  resting  upon  him  higher  than  the  obligation  to  pre- 
serve his  life,  then  he  fled — and  his  flight  was  not  inconsis- 
tent with  his  courage. 
17* 


394  LECTURES. 

This  is  no  ex  post  facto  argument,  no  sophism,  devised  to 
reconcile  Elijah's  flight  from  Jezebel  with  the  highest  form 
of  true  courage.  True  courage  upon  the  battlefield  often 
retreats,  while  temerity  improperly  fights  ;  true  courage,  inde- 
pendently of  public  opinion,  will  often  refuse  to  fight,  while 
fear  of  public  opinion,  the  most  debasing  form  of  cowardice, 
will  consent  to  fight. 

But  duty  soon  required  Elijah's  services.  God  said  to 
him,  in  his  hiding-place,  "  Arise,  and  go  and  meet  Ahab,  who 
is  in  the  vineyard  of  Naboth  in  Samaria."  Ahab  had  cov- 
eted Naboth's  vineyard,  and  Jezebel  had  Naboth  slain  that 
the  king  might  have  it ;  and  he  had  now  gone  the  day  after 
Naboth's  death  and  taken  possession  of  it.  Elijah's  duty  to 
his  God  called  him,  and  the  fearless  hero  with  his  wonted 
courage  obeyed.  Ahab  had  taken  possession  of  the  vine- 
yard of  his  neighbor,  and  was  walking  through  it  with  a  self- 
congratulatory  and  haughty  mien,  when  he  suddenly  looked 
up,  and  lo  !  confronting  him  was  the  redoubtable  Elijah, 
the  terrible  prophet  of  God,  right  in  the  capital  of  his  own 
kingdom,  in  the  very  shadow  of  the  palace  of  his  bloody 
queen. 

"  Hast  thou  found  me,  O  mine  enemy  ? "  said  Ahab. 
"I  have  found  thee,"  said  the  prophet  with  awful  emphasis — 
"  I  have  found  thee,  and  where  ?  In  the  very  act  of  taking 
possession  of  that  which  is  not  thine  own,  in  the  very  act  of 
sin.  Thou  hast  sold  thyself  to  work  evil  in  the  sight  of 
the  Lord" — "  sold  thyself  to  the  Devil."  And  in  the  name 
of  God  the  prophet  pronounced  upon  the  king  and  his 
wicked  family  the  most  dreadful  evils.  Elijah's  inspiring 
courage  was  an  alchemy  which  transmuted  his  every  bone 
into  solid  brass,  his  every  muscle  into  unyielding  iron,  his 
every  nerve  into  fibrous  steel,  his  face  into  unimpressible 
and  invulnerable  flint,  when  duty  commanded  him  to  action. 

Ahab  was  slain  at  the  battle  of  Ramoth-gilead,  and  Aha- 


ELIJAH.  395 

ziah  his  son  was  king  in  his  place.  Ahaziah  fell  through  a 
lattice  in  his  upper  chamber,  and  was  severely  injured,  and 
he  sent  messengers  to  inquire  of  Baal-zebub,  the  tutelary- 
god  of  Ekron,  whether  he  would  recover.  By  the  command- 
ment of  God,  Elijah  met  the  messengers  upon  the  top  of  a 
hill  near  Samaria,  and  told  them  to  return  unto  the  king 
and  tell  him  that  because  he  had  sent  to  inquire  of  Baal- 
zebub,  the  god  of  Ekron,  and  not  the  God  of  Israel,  he 
should  die.  The  king  sent  three  several  companies,  each 
numbering  fifty  men  besides  their  captain,  to  arrest  the 
prophet,  and  bring  him  into  the  royal  presence.  The  first 
two  companies  with  their  captains,  at  the  word  of  Elijah, 
were  consumed  by  fire  from  heaven.  The  third  captain  and 
his  company,  in  answer  to  the  captain's  prayer,  were  spared 
from  so  dreadful  a  fate. 

Elijah  refused  to  be  arrested  by  the  first  two  captains  and 
taken  to  the  king.  He  would  not  go,  until  the  Lord  said, 
"  Go  down,  ....  be  not  afraid."  He  then  arose,  imme- 
diately, and  accompanied  the  third  captain  into  the  city,  and 
entered  into  the  very  chamber  of  the  king ;  but  oh,  how  dif- 
ferently from  what  the  king  had  looked  for.  He  expected 
the  prophet  to  be  brought  before  him  under  arrest,  and  to 
stand  before  him  an  humble,  trembling  suppliant  for  the 
royal  clemency.  But  the  prophet  came  voluntarily.  He, 
who  could  command  the  fires  of  heaven,  no  earthly  or  infer- 
nal power  could  force.  He  approached  the  king,  not  to  be 
tried,  but  to  try  the  king;  not  to  be  judged,  but  to  be  the 
judge  ;  and  at  once,  in  the  presence  of  the  royal  guards  and 
astonished  courtiers,  arraigned  the  guilty  monarch,  charged 
him  with  his  offence,  pronounced  the  sentence,  and  turning 
away  with  the  magisterial  dignity  of  God's  vicegerent,  left 
him  to  his  fate.  Knew  you  not,  Elijah,  that  the  royal  nod 
of  the  dying  monarch  could  have  hung  you  upon  a  gallows,  or 
stoned  thee  to  death  without  the  gates  of  Samaria  ?     God  had 


396  LECTURES. 

said,  "Go  down,  ....  be  not  afraid,"  and  this  was  enough 
for  the  prophet. 

This  naturally  introduces  another  trait  in  Elijah's  charac- 
ter for  examination,  clearly  illustrated  in  his  life. 

2.  His  faith  in  God.  Upon  Elijah's  faith  in  God  was 
based  the  distinctive  qualities  of  his  moral  character.  His 
moral  courage  did  not  consist  in  the  aggregated  strength  of 
human  powers  and  human  resolutions ;  it  was  not  a  dogged 
reliance  upon  himself;  not  the  result  of  inexorable  selfish- 
ness ;  not  the  result  of  unbending  pride  ;  not  the  result  of 
presumption ;  not  the  result  of  stubbornness — indeed,  any 
quality  based  upon  such  principles  would  not  be  moral 
courage  ;  but  it  was  the  result  of  an  unshaken  confidence  in 
God — it  was  grounded  upon  faith  in  God.  As  in  the  last 
illustration  of  his  moral  courage,  he  went  not  down  to  King 
Ahaziah,  but  sat  still  upon  the  hill,  though  sent  for  three 
times,  till  God  said  the  third  time,  "  Go  down,  ....  be  not 
afraid."  To  have  gone  before  God  commanded  him  to  go, 
before  in  consequence  of  the  command  it  became  his  duty 
to  go,  would  have  been  rashness;  to  go  after  God  com- 
manded him  to  go,  after  in  consequence  of  the  command  it 
became  his  duty  to  go,  was  moral  courage  founded  upon  faith 
in  God's  sovereign  protection  and  providence. 

Temerity  and  pusillanimity  are  antipodes  of  character, 
which  always  show  a  character  to  be  wanting  in  strength  and 
development — a  mental  constitution  unmethodic  and  unsym- 
metric.  As  traits  of  moral  character  they  are  criminally  cen- 
surable. The  concrete  form  of  temerity  in  religion  is  pre- 
sumption ;  the  concrete  form  of  pusillanimity  in  religion  is  a 
base  and  dastardly  fear  of  man,  and  suspicion  and  distrust  of 
God.  Both  are  to  be  avoided.  Elijah  avoided  both,  not  by 
his  art,  but  by  the  perfection  of  his  character,  and  the  perfec- 
tion of  his  faith.  Elijah's  history  abounds  with  illustrations 
of  his  faith.     In  every  exhibition  of  his  moral  courage,  faith 


ELIJAH.  397 

in  God  was  the  moving  power.  God  said  unto  him,  "  Go, 
show  thyself  unto  Ahab ;  and  I  will  send  rain  upon  the 
earth."  So  implicitly  did  he  believe  this  promise,  that  before 
a  solitary  cloud  was  seen  in  the  sky  he  told  Ahab  to  "  get 
up,  eat  and  drink  ;  for  there  is  a  sound  of  abundance  of  rain." 
Here  we  have  one  of  the  most  pertinent  illustrations  of  evan- 
gelical faith  in  the  Bible.  Elijah  acted  upon  God's  promise 
to  send  rain  before  a  single  sign  of  the  fulfilment  of  the 
promise  was  given.  His  faith  was  so  strong  that  he  acted 
upon  it  in  advance  of  all  sensuous  and  experimental  evi- 
dence. 

3.  God's  sovereign  protection  of  Elijah.  God  sent  the 
prophet  to  do  His  work,  and  God  intended  to  protect  the 
prophet.  The  prophet  trusted  God,  and  courageously  did 
the  work  God  sent  him  to  do,  and  God  did  protect  him.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  famine  predicted  by  Elijah,  God  said  to 
him  :  "  Get  thee  hence,  and  turn  thee  eastward,  and  hide 
thyself  by  the  brook  Cherith,  that  is  beyond  Jordan.  And  it 
shall  be  that  thou  shalt  drink  of  the  brook  ;  and  I  have  com- 
manded the  ravens  to  feed  thee  there."  Elijah  obeyed  ;  he 
drank  of  the  brook  ;  and  every  morning  as  the  sun  arose  and 
its  dewless  beams  came  shaving  over  the  summits  of  Gilead 
and  Pisgah,  and  every  evening  as  the  sun-god's  chariot  rolled 
over  the  heights  of  Ephraim  and  shot  back  from  the  disk  of 
his  burning  shield  in  level  lines  of  fires  his  parting  rays  and 
hastened  away  to  the  west,  the  black  wing  of  the  raven  was 
seen  gleaming  in  the  morning  and  evening  light,  skimming 
over  the  mountains  and  rocks  of  Palestine,  or  from  beyond 
Jordan,  bringing  him  his  bread  and  meat. 

At  the  expiration  of  six  months,  when  the  brook  was  dried, 
God  sent  him  for  the  remaining  three  years  of  the  famine  to 
the  widow's  house  in  Zarepfiath,  whom  He  had  commanded 
to  feed  the  prophet.  Though  God  had  the  interests  of  worlds 
to  engage  His  constant  attention,  yet  when  the  last  cup  of 


398  LECTURES. 

water  in  the  brook  feebly  rippled  into  the  Jordan,  or  evapo- 
rated, leaving  Cherith's  rugged  channel  dry,  God  saw  it,  and 
immediately  made  provision  for  His  faithful  servant.  God 
would  let  worlds  go  to  naught  before  He  would  disappoint  the 
faith  of  the  least  of  them  who  trust  Him 

But  let  us  retrocede  in  our  narrative.  Elijah  had  fled  from 
the  threatened  cruelty  of  Jezebel  into  the  solitudes  of  the 
wilderness.  His  life  so  far  had  been  an  eventful  and  stormy 
one  ;  he  had  seen  but  little  quiet.  The  purity  of  his  charac- 
ter and  life  had  virtually  separated  him  from  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, and  he  had  no  congenial  associations  among  men. 
Heaven  could  only  furnish  such  a  man  with  congenial  com- 
panions. He  sat  down  under  the  juniper-tree  and  prayed  : 
"  It  is  enough ;  now,  O  Lord,  take  away  my  life  ;  for  I  am 
not  better  than  my  fathers."  He  then  fell  asleep — but  the 
Lord  heard  his  prayer  and  commissioned  the  angel  to  go  and 
feed  him  miraculously,  and  then  to  send  him  in  the  strength 
of  that  food  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  "  Horeb,  the 
mount  of  God,"  the  Olympus  of  the  Bible. 

After  refreshment  by  sleep  and  food,  Elijah,  in  obedience 
to  God's  command,  commenced  his  journey  to  -Horeb,  and 
at  the  expiration  of  forty  days  and  nights  of  continuous 
travel,  he  arrived  at  the  mount  and  lodged  in  a  cave.  God 
loved  His  persecuted  and  faithful  child,  and  there,  upon  His 
Sinaitic  throne  of  rugged  and  granitic  grandeur,  met  him  to 
hear  his  grievances.  "What  doest  thou  here,  Elijah  ?  "  said 
God.  Every  word  burned  with  love,  and  Elijah  felt  it  and  was 
encouraged.  He  answered, «'  I  have  been  very  jealous  for  the 
Lord  God  of  hosts  :  for  the  children  of  Israel  have  forsaken 
thy  covenant,  thrown  down  thine  altars,  and  slain  thy  proph- 
ets with  the  sword  ;  and  I,  even  I  only,  am  left ;  and  they 
seek  my  life  to  take  it  away." 

Elijah  ceased  and  waited  for  the  answer  :  and  lo !  an 
awful  hurricane  furiously  vaulting  and  whirling  with  confound- 


ELIJAH.  399 

ing  din,  as  if  the  dread  spirits  of  the  wind  were  holding  a 
maddened  carnival  among  the  anarchic  sands,  granite  ruins, 
and  splintered  mountains  of  the  desert,  suddenly  burst  upon 
the  scene,  screaming  through  every  fracture  and  yelling  around 
every  rocking  crag,  and  howling  down  the  mountain-sides, 
till  every  ravine  and  every  gorge  had  a  tongue  of  resounding 
rage,  and  obstreperous  thunder  ;  «'  but  the  Lord  was  not  in 
the  wind." 

The  dismal  moaning  of  the  wilderness  succeeding  the  de- 
parting storm  had  scarcely  ceased,  when  giant  earthquakes 
planting  their  brawny  feet  upon  the  metamorphic  granite 
forming  the  thoracic  walls  within  whose  circumference  the 
great  heart  of  the  globe  beats  with  thunder  throbs,  and  sends 
from  its  ventricles  along  aortic  channels  lined  with  scoriae 
and  cindery  rock  streams  of  lavic  fire  spouting  from  three 
hundred  volcanic  cones,  bended  their  stalwart  backs  and 
shouldered  the  mountains,  loosing  their  rocky  roots,  and 
wrathfully  shook  them  till  their  jagged  peaks  nutating  and 
colliding  threatened  to  beat  each  other  down  to  dust ;  "  but 
the  Lord  was  not  in  the  earthquake." 

The  quaking  peaks  had  scarcely  settled  back  with  a  deep, 
hollow,  and  crashing  growl  into  their  places,  when  suddenly 
the  whole  mount  was  wrapped  as  with  a  garment  in  sheets 
of  lire — climbing,  wreathing,  entwining,  dissolving,  rolling, 
till  the  igneous  sea  lifted  its  fiery  tongues  and  licked  the 
firmament  above — "but  the  Lord  was  not  in  the  fire."  The 
fire  was  scarcely  extinguished — save  here  and  there  a  burn- 
ing bush,  as  if  God  the  second  time  was  present  with  Moses, 
and  saying,  "  Put  off  thy  shoes  from  off  thy  feet :  for  the 
place  whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground," — when  there 
was  heard  "a  still  small  voice,"  in  which  God  was  pleased 
to  manifest  Himself. 

How  well  was  this  manifestation  of  God  adapted  to  the 
occasion.     He  did  not  manifest  Himself  to  the  prophet  in 


400  LECTURES. 

winds,  earthquakes,  and  fires,  His  appropriate  manifestations 
in  the  stern  administrations  of  His  providence  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  nations  of  earth.  These  were  but  the  heralds  of 
His  presence  then.  The  intercourse  between  God  and 
Elijah  was  to  be  purely  confidential  and  sympathetic,  hence 
the  manifestation  was  the  soothing,  still,  small  voice  of  God- 
like sympathy.  When  Elijah  heard  the  voice  he  knew  that 
God  was  present,  and  "  he  wrapped  his  face  in  his  mantle," 
in  token  of  reverence,  and  went  and  stood  in  the  door  of  his 
cave.  The  question  was  again  :  "  What  doest  thou  here, 
Elijah  ?  "  Elijah  answered  as  before,  with  his  prayer  under 
the  juniper-tree  :  "  It  is  enough  ;  now,  O  Lord,  take  my  life." 

God  told  him  in  reply  to  return  by  the  way  of  Damas- 
cus, and  while  there  to  anoint  Hazael  king  of  Syria ;  and  up- 
on his  arrival  in  the  land  of  Israel  to  anoint  Jehu  king  of 
Israel,  and  Elisha  his  successor  in  the  prophetic  office.  God 
told  him  furthermore  there  were  several  thousand  in  Israel  who 
were  not  idolaters.  Elijah,  in  answer  to  God's  question,  had 
complained  of  the  wickedness  of  the  people,  and  that  he 
was  the  only  true  worshipper  of  God  remaining  alive  in 
Israel.  God's  command  to  the  prophet  was  intended  for  his 
comfort,  in  that  He  made  the  prophet  the  instrument  in  the 
appointment  of  three  men  "  to  vindicate  His  own  insulted 
honor,"  assuring  him  also  that  he  was  mistaken  about  him- 
self being  the  only  true  worshipper  of  God  left  alive  in  Israel. 
Elijah  felt,  also,  that  his  prayer  under  the  juniper-tree  would 
shortly  be  answered,  else,  why  was  he  commanded  to 
anoint  his  successor  ?  But  how  was  it  to  be  answered  ?  Elijah 
had  prayed  to  die,  but  God  intended  to  give  him  some- 
thing better  :  He  intended  to  take  the  prophet  away  from  a 
world  to  which  he  was  not  adapted,  by  being  better  than 
other  men,  to  a  congenial  heaven,  without  dying. 

Elijah  made  his  first  appearance  nine  hundred  and  ten 
years  before  the  coming  of  Christ.   With  equal  abruptness,  at 


ELIJAH.  401 

intervals  during  a  brief  ministry  of  fourteen  years,  did  he  ap- 
pear upon  the  historic  arena  of  these  eventful  times.  He  left 
the  world  as  suddenly  as  he  came  into  it,  eight  hundred  and 
ninety-six  years  before  Christ.  Of  the  decalogue  he  was  a  liv- 
ing incarnation.  He  was  the  terror  and  purity  of  offended  law 
in  sublime  personification.  He  was  the  unforgiving  and  inex- 
orable commandment  in  vital  embodiment.  He  was  Sinai 
concreted  in  personality  in  a  glorious  and  royal  humanity.  He 
was  God's,  the  Lawgiver's  vicegerent.  Living  almost  equidis- 
tant between  Moses  and  Christ,  he  exemplified  and  vindi- 
cated mercilessly  the  Mosaic  and  legal  system,  and  became 
the  forerunner  and  type  of  a  higher  system  in  its  spirituality, 
aims,  and  aspirations.  In  the  execution  of  his  mission  he 
burned  along  the  circle  of  law's  dispensation,  and  shaking 
hands  with  Moses  in  the  presence  of  God  on  the  granite 
rocks  of  Horeb,  where  this  dispensation  began,  he  completed 
the  cycle.  He  marked  out  the  boundary-line  between  the 
two  distinct  epochs  in  the  history  of  the  world's  religious 
development.  He  marked  the  point  where  the  red  and 
fiery  beams  of  Sinai  and  the  mellow  rays  of  Calvary  met. 

Behind  him  all  the  finger-posts  along  the  road  of  the 
world's  historic  travel  pointed  back  to  Sinai ;  before  him  all 
the  finger-posts  pointed  forward  to  Calvary.  Before  Elijah's 
time  the  eye  of  the  religious  world  looked  back  ;  after  his  time 
it  looked  forward — retrospection  was  changed  for  prospec- 
tion.  With  him  the  Mosaic  dispensation  verged  into  the  pro- 
phetic, which  had  only  an  eye  to  the  coming  Christ.  As  the 
sublime  vindicator  of  the  law  of  Moses  he  followed  Moses, 
yet  he  heralded  in  the  prophetic  dispensation,  as  a  dis- 
pensation, and  in  his  spirit  and  power  was  to  be  Christ's 
forerunner.  Like  Moses  and  Christ,  he  stands  out  in  living 
light  as  the  type  and  inaugurator  of  a  respective  dispen- 
sation. And  when  all  postdiluvian  dispensations  were  to  be 
united  into  one,  Moses,  Elijah,  and  Christ  celebrated  the 


402  LECTURES. 

union  on  Mount  Tabor,  making  as  the  subject  of  their  com- 
munion the  basis  of  such  union  the  death  of  Christ.  Like 
Moses  and  Christ,  Elijah  fasted  forty  days  and  forty  nights, 
and  Like  them  he  left  no  tenanted  grave  that  men  can  mark. 

But  the  time  of  Elijah's  departure  has  come.  There  is  no 
grave-digging,  no  coffin-making,  no  burial-clothes  preparing, 
no  mourners  employed.  The  school  of  the  prophets  is  ex- 
cited. Elisha  looks  sad  and  thoughtful.  Elijah  looks  like 
the  grand  old  hero  of  God  which  he  was.  His  majestic  faith 
and  lofty  courage  had  written  with  more  distinctness  than 
an  angel's  pen  upon  his  brow — "  King  of  the  Ages  " — and  his 
devotion  to  God  was  his  royal  robe,  and  the  blessings  of 
heaven  his  crown.  But  the  day  is  at  hand.  Elisha  has  taken 
an  oath  that  he  will  not  leave  Elijah  alone.  They  walk  to- 
gether from  Gilgal,  where  the  prophet  is  residing,  to  Bethel, 
from  Bethel  they  go  to  Jericho,  from  Jericho  to  Jordan. 

Fifty  sons  of  the  prophets  stand  awed  in  the  distance  as 
witnesses.  Elijah's  probation  is  finished.  A  crown  and 
palm  are  prepared  ;  a  throne  is  erected  on  the  right  hand  of 
God  by  the  side  of  antediluvian  Enoch.  A  deputation  of 
extraordinary  magnificence  leaves  heaven  and  starts  earth- 
ward. The  reason  of  its  departure  is  quickly  known.  And 
the  citizens  of  God's  metropolis,  the  New  Jerusalem,  gather 
near  the  gates  of  the  city  facing  this  way ;  patriarchs 
lining  both  sides  of  the  gates,  and  Jezebel's  martyred  prophets 
climbing  higher  and  standing  upon  eternal  arches  of  tianslu- 
cent  pearl  spanning  the  way,  while  angels  still  mounting 
higher,  with  harp  in  hand,  rest  with  balanced  wing  upon 
lofty  turrets  and  beetling  battlements  of  blazing  jasper — while 
far  back  roof,  wall,  and  tower  are  crowded,  crowded  with 
heaven's  beauty  ;  all  looking,  and  peering  this  way  with  in- 
tensest  gaze  down  the  paths  of  space,  to  greet  with  a  shout 
the  first  appearance  of  the  returning  cavalcade,  and  assist  in 
honoring  the  hero  of  Carmel. 


ELIJAH.  403 

In  the  meantime,  Elijah  and  his  companion  stand  upon 
the  margin  of  Jordan.  The  old  river  rushes  down  its  steep 
and  rocky  bed,  as  it  did  when  Joshua  five  and  a  half  centuries 
before  smote  its  waters,  and  a  nation  passed  over  to  its  in- 
heritance dryshod.  Elijah  folds  his  mantle  and  smites  the 
flood,  and  the  waters  roll  hither  and  thither,  and  in  like  man- 
ner they  pass  over  on  dry  ground.  They  ascend  to  the  other 
bank  and  walk  on  in  sweet  conversation.  The  royal  deputa- 
tion from  heaven  descending  like  light,  flashes  along  down 
the  ranges  of  the  milky  way,  passes  the  sun,  and  is  in  sight. 
They  look  up,  and  behold  a  point  of  light  rapidly  nearing. 
Soon  they  see  steeds  of  fire  shod  with  meteors  and  wings  of 
speed,  whose  quivering  manes  drop  golden  frost,  and  whose 
neesings  were  as  the  morning  light.  Behind  them  a  chariot 
of  fire,  whose  wheels  of  flaming  ruby  singing  upon  their  axes 
down  heaven's  blue  pavement  struck  lightning.  Elisha 
falls  back  overwhelmed,  and  Elijah,  flinging  down  his  mantle, 
mounts  the  wondrous  car,  and  disappointing  death  and  the 
grave,  waves  "  good-by "  to  earth,  and  straight  turning 
wheels  above  the  constellations,  and  hies  away  to  the  city 
of  God.  But  a  moment  elapsing  till  the  fiery  rims  of  his 
chariot  wheels  are  flying  through  the  portals  of  the  heavenly 
city,  welcomed  by  the  thunder  anthems  of  heaven's  orches- 
tra, and  the  thunder  shouts  of  heaven's  hosts.  I  wonder  if 
his  chariot  will  ever  come  for  us. 


LECTURE  II. 


MAN. 


•«  When  I  consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the  moon  and 
the  stars  which  thou  hast  ordained  : 

"  What  is  man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?  and  the  son  of  man  that 
thou  visitest  him  ? 

"  For  thou  hast  made  him  alittle  lower  than  the  angels,  and  hast  crowned 
him  with  glory  and  honor." — Psalm  viii.  3,-5. 

"  And  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed 
into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life  ;  and  man  became  a  living  soul."— 
Gen.  ii.  7. 

MAN  is  a  complex  being  in  his  unity.  With  reference 
to  his  personality  he  is  one  ;  with  reference  to  his 
substance,  popularly  speaking,  he  is  two  ;  with  reference  to 
his  nature,  as  distinguished  from  his  substance,  he  is  three. 
He  is  a  unity  in  personality,  a  dichotomy  in  substance,  a 
trichotomy  in  nature.  He  is  one  in  person,  but  in  the  unity 
of  his  personality  he  is  twofold,  in  substance  being  both  ma- 
terial and  immaterial,  and  threefold  in  nature,  having  a  body, 
soul,  and  spirit. 

For  a  knowledge  of  the  distinction  between  body  and 
spirit  we  are  indebted  to  the  Bible  and  science,  for  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  distinction  between  soul  and  spirit  we  are  in- 
debted to  the  Bible  and  religion  solely  and  wholly.  The 
body  is  the  lowest  part  of  man's  nature,  the  soul  is  the  mid- 
dle part,  the  spirit  is  the  highest  part.  Now  without  no- 
ticing man  especially  in  his  bifold  character  as  material  and 
immaterial  simply,  I  will  present  him  to  you  according  to 
this  tripartite  analysis. 


MAN.  405 

1.  The  Body  is  the  lowest  part  of  man's  nature  ;  it  is 
compounded  of  material  elements,  the  base  of  whose  con- 
struction is  dust  :  of  itself  it  is  nothing  but  an  arrangement 
of  passive  and  thoughtless  organs  prepared  and  systematized 
for  the  use  of  a  power  or  powers,  which  it  cannot  originate, 
but  only  serve.  Yet  it  is  an  essential  part  of  man's  nature 
as  man,  and  is  the  most  exquisitely  constructed  thing  in  the 
material  world,  the  most  wonderful  of  all  chemical  com- 
pounds. It  is  the  masterpiece  of  God's  terraqueous  work- 
manship. 

ft  is  a  magnificent  structure  of  more  than  250  bones, 
clothed  with  muscles  and  tied  together  by  1,000  ligaments, 
the  whole  invested  with  a  skin  containing  200,000,000  of 
pores,  and  enclosing  three  grand  cavities  in  which  are  organs 
of  wonderful  functions  and  powers.  The  ends  of  these 
bones  are  veneered  with  elastic  cartilage  and  the  ligaments 
which  bind  them  together  are  lined  with  a  membrane  which 
secretes  a  lubricating  fluid.  The  muscles  which  clothe  them 
are  disposed  in  bundles  enclosed  in  sheaths,  and  the  skin 
which  invests  the  whole  is  made  up  of  tissues  disposed  in 
layers.  The  body  is  a  metropolitan  municipality  of  bones 
and  muscles,  an  organized,  functional  human  city,  of  which 
the  head  is  the  Capitol  and*  palatial  abode  of  royalty. 
Within  the  mural  inclosures  of  the  Capitol  and  covered 
with  its  osseous  dome  are  chambers  hung  with  curtains  of 
woven  filaments  of  the  finest  structure  and  elastic  textures 
of  the  most  delicate  membrane,  carpeted  with  exquisitely 
compounded  encephalon,  and  splendidly  furnished  and  elab- 
orately and  magnificently  ornamented. 

Within  its  walls  are  galleries  adorned  with  the  gorgeous 
paintings  of  Imagination's  artistic  pencil  :  the  rooms  of 
Mnemosyne,  clerk  of  state,  packed  and  crammed  with 
memory's  records ;  the  sombre  halls  of  State  in  which  Judg- 
ment, Reason,  and   Conscience,  the   Rhadamanthus,  Minos, 


406  LECTURES. 

and  ^Eacus  of  the  human  realm,  sit  ermined  in  stern  judicial 
conclave ;  and  the  imperial  chamber  where  the  human  will 
sits  enthroned,  diademed  and  sceptred  in  Sovereignty. 

The  royal  edifice  is  interpenetrated  from  the  outside  world 
by  labyrinthine  and  complicate  corridors,  along  whose  ner- 
vous floors  fiery  messengers  ever  run,  leading  from  two  curious 
cavernous  openings  on  both  sides,  and  two  splendid,  arched 
oval  and  convex  entrances,  protected  by  two  cunning  little 
doors  or  palpebra,  hinged  and  fringed,  high  up  in  the  front, 
whose  retinal  passages  are  ever  crowded  with  light  and 
beauty. 

At  the  base  of  the  building  is  the  temple  of  Taste ;  stand- 
ing at  the  entrance  of  the  street  leading  to  the  Stomach,  the 
city  market-house,  resides  the  mind's  herald,  who  formally 
announces  to  other  municipalities  the  decrees,  laws,  opinions, 
decisions,  and  acts  of  the  high  functionaries  and  courts  of 
the  realm,  resident  within — sometimes,  however,  exceeding 
its  province  and  babbling  secrets  of  the  throne  and  bench  to 
the  great  detriment  of  the  State. 

But  of  all  the  mysteries  of  this  most  mysterious  palace, 
the  front  is  the  most  curious.  From  the  supraciliary  cornice 
down  to  the  maxillary  foundations  it  is  veneered  with  a 
covering  of  fibrous  muscle,  delicately  lineated  and  instinct 
with  nerves,  which  advertises,  by  the  curvature  and  com- 
bination of  its  lines,  its  expressions  and  complexion,  the 
acts,  resolutions,  and  even  dispositions  and  conditions  of  the 
imperial,  judicial,  and  official  residents  within. 

To  notice  anatomically,  however,  in  detail  the  several 
cavities,  organs,  etc.,  of  the  body  is  unnecessary  now,  and 
would  be  entirely  inappropriate  as  well  as  exceedingly  weari- 
some both  to  you  and  myself;  but  an  address,  the  subject 
of  which  is  Man,  must  necessarily  include  within  its  compass 
the  body  in  that  physical  condition  in  which  the  body  onl> 
can  be  considered  as  a  part  of  the  man — viz.,  as  a  live  body 


MAN.  407 

The  body  is  alive. 

The  vital  condition  of  every  part  of  the  human  body  is 
subject  to  continual  change  ;  such  change  being  the  result 
of  the  action  of  four  forces  :  mechanical  forces,  chemical 
forces,  vital  forces,  and  mental  forces.  Life  with  relation  to 
the  body  is  an  invisible,  imponderable,  intangible,  imma- 
terial energy. 

There  are  various  theories  with  reference  to  the  source  of 
animal  life  : 

1.  It  may  be  one  of  the  manifestations  of  man's  spirit 
breathed  into  the  body  by  God  the  Maker  in  the  day  of 
man's  making. 

2.  Or  it  may  be  something  individually  distinct  from  man's 
spirit,  and  an  emanation  from  Deity  per  afflatum. 

What  it  is,  or  what  it  is  not,  I  do  not  know,  and  I  shall 
not  farther  speculate.  But  we  do  know  it  is  not  the  result 
of  physical  organization,  for  it  is  the  formative  principle  of 
the  body,  that  which  induces  in  matter  organization,  there- 
fore it  exists  before  the  development  of  the  body.  Its  pres- 
ence is  detected  in  the  almost  diamond  brilliancy  of  the 
fluid  within  the  little  germinal  cell  in  the  ovum  from  which 
the  body  is  evolved. 

Life  as  a  force  with  reference  to  mechanical  forces  brings 
under  its  control  all  mechanical  laws  in  their  application  to 
the  internal  structure  of  the  body,  and  works  the  machine 
and  supplies  the  body's  waste  and  wear  and  tear  in  the 
exercise  of  its  functions,  preserving  its  structure  and  form 
through  the  roll  of  years. 

Life  as  a  force  with  reference  to  chemical  forces  subor- 
dinates to  itself  the  chemical  laws  of  affinity,  dissolution, 
and  combustion  so  far  as  such  laws  are  necessary  to  main- 
tain in  healthy  state  and  vital  action  the  functions  of  the 
body,  and  counteracting  and  suspending  these  laws  in  so  far 
as  they  tend  to  destroy  the  bodily  organization. 


408  LECTURES. 

Life  as  a  force  with  reference  to  mental  forces,  brings 
passive  and  foreign  matter  into  such  relations  and  aspects  to 
mind,  that  mind  can  govern  matter,  develop  itself  through 
matter,  and  make  matter,  thoughtless,  purposeless,  and  inert 
as  it  is,  subserve  intelligent  ends.  Life  organizes  the  body 
and  unites  all  the  organs  into  the  oneness  of  itself,  that  they 
may  subserve  the  purpose  of  an  individual  and  single  soul. 
While  life  organizes  matter  and  perpetuates  the  organization 
a-nd'is  therefore  a  higher  power  than  body,  yet  it  is  but  the 
servant  of  mind.  Mind  can  wrest  at  will  from  the  hands  of 
life  some  of  life's  most  valuable  instruments,  and  so  interfere 
with  life's  operations  as  to  destroy  it.  Mind  has  destroyed 
liTe  and  disembodied  itself. 

The  life  of  the  body  exhibits  itself  to  us  in  a  twofold 
aspect :  animal  life  and  organic  life.  Animal  life  is  life  in  the 
nerves ;  organic  life  is  life  in  the  organs.  Animal  life  is  life 
in  the  nervous  system  with  its  great  cerebro-spinal  centre ; 
organic  life  is  life  in  the  vascular  system  with  its  grand 
engine-heart  centre.  The  life,  however,  is  one,  as  life  in  man 
in  the  nervous  system  is  the  cause  of  life  in  the  vascular 
system.  Life  being  an  invisible,  imponderable,  intangible, 
and  immaterial  energy,  must  necessarily  have  an  instrument 
for  its  operations.  The  instrument  of  life — that  by  which 
the  whole  chemistry  of  animal  and  organic  life  is  carried  on, 
by  which  the  whole  machinery  of  man's  body  is  driven,  and 
by  which  the  functional  activity  of  every  part  of  the  body  is 
harmonized  into  relative,  reciprocal,  and  correlative  action 
to  subserve  the  purposes  of  a  single  life,  and  a  single  soul — 
is  an  imponderable  something  electrical  in  its  nature.  Phys- 
iologists call  it  nerve  force [A  very  elaborate  descrip- 
tion of  the  nervous  system  here  follows.] 

But  now,  let  us  arrive  at  some  conclusions  :  If  God  be 
more  excellent  than  dust,  then  the  governing  part  of  man 
must  be  that  part  farthest  removed  from  dust,  and  nearest  to 


MAN.  409 

God.  The  soul  is  nearer  to  God  in  its  nature  than  the  body, 
therefore  it  must  govern  the  body ;  if  man's  nature  be  tri- 
partite, the  spirit  is  nearer  to  God  than  the  soul,  therefore  it 
must  govern  the  soul.  The  spirit  must  govern  the  soul,  the 
soul  as  governed  by  the  spirit  must  govern  the  body.  For 
the  lower  parts  of  man's  nature  to  be  uncontrolled  by  the 
higher,  is  utterly  frustrative  of  man's  attainable  glorious  des- 
tiny. If  the  body  is  not  governed  by  the  soul  the  man  is  a 
beast — a  low  grovelling  beast.  The  adaptation  of  body  to 
soul,  the  connection  of  the  soul  with  the  body,  and  the  nature 
and  manner  of  its  government  over  the  body,  with  other  col- 
lateral questions,  I  intended  to  notice  at  some  length  but  I 
am  compelled  to  pass  all  of  them  by.  If  the  soul  is  not 
governed  by  the  spirit,  it  is  lixe  a  furious  horse  without  a 
rider,  a  flying  locomotive  without  an  engineer. 

The  spirit  must  govern  the  soul,  or  in  other  words  the 
Pneuma  must  govern  the  Psuche,  or  soul,  Psyche,  or  mind 
will  rush  into  those  wild  extremes  which  have  rendered 
knowledge  a  curse  from  the  time  its  desire  seduced  our 
mother  Eve  through  all  the  ages  to  this  time.  (  Knowledge  ^ 
sanctified  by  religion  is  a  great  good,  but  knowledge  without 
religion  is  a  great  curse.  )It  plucked  Eden's  forbidden  fruit, 
murdered  Abel,  and  has  murdered  on  to  the  present.  It  has 
erected  every  system  of  tyranny  and  cruelty  which  has  op- 
pressed mankind.  It  built  every  inquisition,  and  invented 
every  instrument  of  torture  whose  diabolical  uses  are  too 
appalling  for  detail.  It  has  generated  all  the  forms  of  in- 
fidelity which  have  run  riot  among  the  nations.  It  is  an 
appalling  fact  that  infidelity  is  born  in  our  colleges  and  uni- 
versities, and  that  it  increases  in  the  ratio  of  the  increase  of 
knowledge,  and  that  the  strongholds  of  learning  are  the 
strongholds  of  infidelity.  Infidels  are  not  the  fools  of  eartlv^v 
but  I  would  say£better  a  believing  ignorance  than  the  in- 
credulity of  learning.' 
18 


410  LECTURES. 

But  why  does  infidelity  reign  in  such  high  places  ? 

i.  Colleges  and  universities  have  to  do  with  mind,  not  with 
spirit.  The  mind  is  the  seat  of  man's  individuality  and  per- 
sonality, the  seat  of  his  volitional  and  intellectual  indepen- 
dence, the  seat  of  his  rational  life.  The  unconverted  student 
does  not  find  a  necessity  in  such  a  mind  for  such  a  thing  as 
religion,  and  not  being  acquainted  with  the  existence  of  a 
dead  Pneuma  in  whose  nature,  condition,  and  dependence 
the  necessity  for  religion  is  found,  he  very  naturally  regards 
the  mind,  the  Psuche,  as  the  highest  part  of  his  nature.  And 
mounting  the  psychical  car  of  human  reason  and  human  phil- 
osophy, drives  out  with  ruinous  speed  upon  the  highway  of  in- 
fidelity, to  discover  his  mistake  probably  not  till  his  chariot  is 
flying  through  the  gates  of  death,  and  not  then  till  it  is  too  late 
to  return,  till  hell's  doors  are  closed  behind  him  and  bolted,  and 
he  is  hurried  away  by  attendant  demons  to  perdition's  fiery  sea 
to  embark  upon  an  eternal  voyage  in  the  frail  boat  of  his  own 
philosophy,  while  eternal  tempests  ever  rage,  and  amid  eternal 
smoke  churn  the  Tartarean  sea  into  mountain  surges  which 
hiss,  and  roar,  and  beat,  and  splash  forever — ten  thousand 
electric  shuttles  drawing  lightning  threads  ever-flying  and 
weaving  the  whole  into  a  plexus  of  indescribable  horror, 
hell's  unmuffled  thunders  rolling  upon  hell's  infernal  drums 
the  dreadful  bass  in  hell's  uproar. 

2.  The  philosophic  student  is  told  that  Religion  teaches  a 
resurrection  to  life  of  something  dead.  Credulous  ignorance 
would  very  probably  accept  the  statement  and  act  upon  it, 
but  not  so  always  with  the  learned  man,  he  must  reason,  and 
thus  he  reasons  :  "  My  body  is  not  dead — my  soul  is  not 
dead  " — and  knowing  nothing  of  .a  dead  spirit,  he  concludes 
that  religion  is  the  merest  abstraction,  the  wildest  dream  of 
human  ignorance  ;  he  therefore  renounces  it.  He  feels  more 
necessity  of  bread,  meat,  and  a  doctor  for  the  body,  and 
books,  and  ideas,  and  a  preceptor  for  the  soul,  than  he  does 


MAN.  411 

of  religion.  He  knows  nothing  of  a  spirit  that  needs  life, 
medicine,  and  nutriment,  and  to  the  balm  of  Gilead  and  the 
Physician  there  he  attaches  no  significance. 

3.  The  philosophical  student  is  told  that  religion  is  a  sys- 
tem involving  the  profoundest  philosophy — and  so  it  is — but 
its  relations  to  the  spirit  are  such  that  the  unconverted  and 
natural  man  cannot  perceive  it.  "  The  natural  man  receiveth 
not  the  things  of  the  spirit  of  God  :  for  they  are  foolishness 
unto  him  :  neither  can  he  know  them,  for  they  are  spiritually 
discerned."  (1  Cor.  ii.  14.)  The  student  not  being  able  to 
distinguish  a  so-called  religious  creed  or  system  and  its 
ethical  developments,  from  an  experimental  and  saving  re- 
ligion, indeed  cognizing  the  first  and  not  the  last,  regards 
religion  simply  as  a  psychical  thing,  and  immediately  makes 
it  a  subject  of  human  reason.  But  an  adventurous  explorer 
may  as  well  endeavor  to  explore  the  Mammoth  Cave  and 
expect  to  map  it  correctly  with  only  a  glow-worm  for  a  taper, 
as  to  endeavor  to  intelligently  explore  the  fields  of  our  holy 
religion  with  the  feeble  light  of  man's  uncertain  reason. 

There  is  a  nature  in  man  higher  than  that  of  reason,  an  in- 
tuitional pneumatical  nature  that  never  reasons.  Psuche  rea- 
sons, and  by  its  reasonings  has  peopled  the  world  with  direst 
monsters — one-footed  creeds,  one-legged  theories,  eyeless  sys- 
tems, bodiless  philosophies,  and  headless  religions.  In  all  the 
fabrics  of  human  reason  and  human  logic  there  are  so  many 
faulty  bricks,  mistakes  of  measurement,  and  errors  of  con- 
struction, that  the  Judgment  will  shake  them  to  fragments 
and  dust — and  woe  to  the  man  that  finds  in  them  his  only 
refuge.  There  is  a  nature  in  man  higher  than  the  reasoning 
Psuche,  and  if  made  alive  by  Christ,  and  preserved  in  con- 
stant communion  with  God,  will  never  make  a  mistake  fatal 
to  salvation  in  any  of  its  intuitions.  The  Christian  knows 
to-day  that  many  things  are  prohibited  to  him  in  his  con- 
science, in  which  his  reason  can  find  no  fault ;  and  he  knows 


412  LECTURES. 

furthermore,  that  if  he  obeys  his  enlightened  conscience,  he 
will  never  make  a  fatal  error.  But  the  irreligious  student  un- 
acquainted with  the  Pneuma  tries  religion  with  the  Psychical 
touchstone  of  his  reason,  and  becomes  so  confounded  in  his 
logic  as  utterly  to  ignore  religion  and  fling  it  out  of  his  mind 
— becoming  wholly  an  infidel. 

In  short,  nearly  all  the  infidelity  of  the  world  has  its  origin 
in  knowledge,  the  development  in  learning  of  the  Psuche, 
ungoverned  by  an  awakened  and  converted  spirit,  the  devel- 
opment in  religion  of  the  Pneuma.  The  gist  of  the  difficulty 
is  found  in  a  failure  to  recognize  in  man  a  higher  power  than 
mind,  and  a  higher  attainment  than  education  :  that  higher 
power  is  spirit,  that  higher  attainment  is  religion.  Unless 
this  higher  power  and  higher  attainment  are  enthroned 
in  man  as  the  governing  power  and  governing  attainment, 
both  body  and  mind  with  their  attainments  are  curses,  not 
blessings — better  for  the  man  he  had  never  been  born.  And 
though,  young  man,  you  may  from  matriculation  to  gradua- 
tion have  ascended  with  slow  and  laboring  steps  the  heights 
of  this  college's  curriculum,  arriving  at  the  summit  with 
honor,  yet,  if  you  are  not  religious,  you  have  gained  no  last- 
ing good.  You  have  now  constructed  a  magnificent  ma- 
chine, but  religion  must  be  your  motive  power  to  drive  it ;  if 
you  have  not  this  motive  power  Satan  will  drive  it  for  you, 
and  if  he  drives  it  having  such  a  machine  will  but  speed  your 
ruin.  Again  I  assert  in  the  face  of  all  the  world's  precedents, 
in  the  face  of  all  the  world's  axioms  so-called,  in  the  face  of 
the  church's  practice  who  have  given  greater  attention  to 
the  dress  and  education  of  their  children  than  to  their  con- 
version, that  knowledge  unsanctified  by  religion  is  a  great 
curse — but  with  religion  to  govern  it,  it  is  a  blessing  whose 
real  value  can  only  be  accurately  estimated  when  eternity 
shall  end. 

Those  in  whom  the  soul  is  made  the  governing  part  are 


MAN.  413 

persons  who  love  science  better  than  they  love  God.  Mind 
is  the  highest  part  in  the  development  of  their  natures,  and 
everything  in  the  heaven,  the  earth  and  universe  is  estimated 
only  in  proportion  as  it  administers  to  mind.  Such  persons 
sometimes  have  what  they  call  religion ;  but  it  is  a  religion 
which  consists  in  the  apotheosis  of  the  mind  and  the  worship 
of  knowledge.  Here  is  the  student's  danger.  It  has  not 
been  a  great  while  ago  since  one  of  the  great  peoples  of  the 
earth  avowedly  substituted  the  Bible  with  philosophy,  and  in 
place  of  Jesus  deified  the  human  reason.  Such  persons,  un- 
less they  become  Atheists — having  no  religion  at  all,  some- 
times, regarding  the  Bible  only  from  a  Psychical  standpoint, 
and  perceiving  nothing  in  it  but  that  which  is  merely  Psychi- 
cal— having  no  conceptions  of  that  deep  spirituality  which 
lies  beyond  the  Psychical  and  which  constitutes  the  real 
essence  of  the  Bible  and  is  the  secret  of  its  unity,  and  in  the 
hands  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  source  of  its  real  power,  and 
weighing  it  only  in  the  Psychical  scales  of  evidence,  reject 
revealed  religion,  and  their  religion,  conventionally  so-called, 
assumes  the  form  of  Deism. 

Sometimes  such  persons,  if  they  escape  perchance  the 
lowest  forms  of  degrading  materialism,  reasoning  from  the 
Psychical  laws  of  cause  and  effect,  lose  their  God  in  nature, 
and  their  religion,  conventionally  so-called,  assumes  the  form 
of  Pantheism.  Sometimes  such  persons  are  so  pre-emi- 
nently Psychical  that  they  adopt  the  Psychical  reason  as  their 
only  and  all-sufficient  guide  in  religious  matters,  and  repudi- 
ating everything  like  Supernaturalism  their  religion  assumes 
some  of  the  intellectual  forms  of  Rationalism. 

Sometimes  such  persons  making  a  false  distinction  in  the 
Psychical  part  of  their  natures  between  intellect  and  sensi- 
bilities, reserve  the  intellect  for  philosophy  and  science,  and 
turn  over  their  religion  to  their  emotions.  In  such  a  case, 
the  religion   of  such   persons  has  not   even  the  redeeming 


414  LECTURES. 

feature  of  common-sense  to  make  its  apology,  and  it  consists 
only  in  bursts  of  excitement.  Such  a  religion  has  often 
kindled  the  passions  of  men  into  combustion  fraught  with 
ruin,  changing  the  soul  into  a  volcano,  whose  lavic  cataclysms 
of  a  fiery  fanaticism  have  at  times  deluged  the  world  and 
buried  so  far  beneath  ashes  and  scoriae  the  fair  fields  of 
civilization  that  the  work  of  ages  could  only  exhume  them. 
Such  a  man's  religion  never  ascends  so  high  as  to  become  a 
matter  of  consciousness  in  his  cooler  hours.  He  only  knows 
he  has  religion  when  he  is  excited.  Between  his  religious 
eruptions  he  is  like  an  extinguished  volcano,  sometimes  the 
snow  and  ice  of  hoary  winter  lying  upon  the  bald  summits 
of  his  nature,  defying  the  sun  of  the  Gospel's  midsummer  to 
melt  them  away.  If  such  a  man's  religion  never  ascends  so 
high  as  to  become  a  matter  of  consciousness  in  his  cooler 
hours,  it  also  never  descends  so  low  as  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  his  life — and  not  only  is  he  not  conscious  of  possess- 
ing religion  in  his  cooler  hours,  but  when  he  is  in  the  same 
state  the  world  does  not  know  it  either.  He  and  the  world 
only  know  that  he  is  religious  when  he  is  excited,  and  to  tell 
the  truth  God  knows  nothing  at  all  about  it.  This  is  one 
thing  that  God  does  not  know. 

Sometimes  the  mind,  the  Psuche,  of  such  persons,  in  place 
of  looking  upward  and  inward  to  the  enshrined  spirit,  the 
appropriate  seat  of  true  religion,  turns  its  attention  down- 
ward and  outward  to  the  senses  which  form  the  media  of  its 
intelligent  connection  with  the  outside  world,  and  in  a  re- 
fined sensism  finds  its  only  religion.  The  minds  of  such 
persons  in  looking  towards  spirit  see  nothing  but  darkness, 
death,  and  a  tomb — for  spirit  by  sin  is  dead.  Such  a  mind 
may  be  well  educated,  but  the  defective  psychology  of  the 
schools  and  a  want  of  pneumatical  preaching  has  been  such, 
that  ignoring  the  existence  of  spirit  it  regards  itself  as  the 
highest  part  of  man's  nature,  and  religion  as  a  gratification 


MAN.  415 

of  itself — and  being  taught  that  religion  comes  from  some 
extrinsic  source,  and  being  ignorant  of  that  high  communi- 
cation between  itself  and  that  source  through  spirit,  very 
naturally  turns  its  attention  to  the  senses,  the  only  channels 
with  which  it  is  acquainted  of  a  communication  between  itself 
and  some  extrinsic  power.  The  religion  of  such  persons 
always  clothes  itself  in  gorgeous  vestments,  and  swells  and 
struts  in  magnificent  pageant,  and  performs  its  services  in 
splendid  ritual — in  other  words,  God  is  mocked  by  a  religion 
of  empty  forms,  meaningless  ceremonies,  spiritless  rites,  hol- 
low symbols,  hollow-hearted  worshippers,  and  whited  tombs. 
Their  religion  is  nothing  more  than  a  fine  coat,  which  can 
be  put  on  and  ofT  at  pleasure. 

Again,  the  enlightened  mind  or  Psyche,  being  able  to  un- 
derstand things,  states,  relations,  and  premises,  subjects, 
copulae,  and  predicates,  and  obligations  to  do  or  not  to  do, 
and  having  the  ability  to  compare,  adjust,  systematize,  and 
draw  conclusions,  is  able  to  perceive  the  difference  between 
virtue  and  vice,  right  and  wrong,  and  to  feel  the  power  of 
moral  obligation.  The  mind  in  virtue  of  a  defective  philos- 
ophy arrogating  to  itself  the  position  that  it  is  the  highest 
part  of  man's  nature,  is  apt  right  here  to  confound  morality 
with  religion — and  this  it  often  does,  and  the  religion  is  noth- 
ing but  a  system  of  Ethics.  Ethics  is  not  religion.  It  is 
purely  Psychical,  appertaining  to  the  Psuche  or  soul,  while 
religion  is  purely  Pneumatical,  appertaining  to  Pneuma  or 
spirit. 

Religion  is  not  a  Psychical  thing,  therefore  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  Psuche  of  which  the  ego  is  the  centre.  It  is 
not  couched  in  the  "  enticing  words  of  man's  wisdom,"  it 
does  not  "  stand  in  the  wisdom  of  men,"  it  is  "  not  the  wis- 
dom of  this  world,  nor  of  the  princes  of  this  world,  that  come 
to  naught " — "  eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard,  neither  have 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  the  things  which  God  hath 


416  LECTURES. 

prepared  for  them  that  love  him  " — "  It  is  not  the  spirit  of 
the  world"  (i  Cor.  ii.) — it  is  not  that  wisdom  which  de- 
scended! not  from  above,  but  is  "earthly,  sensual,  devilish." 
(James  iii.  15.) 

Those  in  whom  the  spirit  is  made  the  governing  part : 
Such  persons  only  are  Christians.  They  love  God  better 
than  mind  or  body,  better  than  they  love  science,  meats  and 
drinks.  God  becomes  philosophically  the  governing  powei 
of  the  man.  Religion  is  a  Pneumatical  thing,  therefore  has 
to  do  primarily  with  the  Pneuma,  of  which  the  God  that  is 
in  man  is  the  centre.  It  is  "  the  wisdom  that  is  from  above." 
It  is  the  wisdom  revealed  u  in  demonstration  of  the  spirit 
and  of  power" — the  faith  which  stands  "in  the  power  of 
God" — "the  wisdom  of  God  in  a  mystery,  even  the  hidden 
wisdom,  which  God  ordained  before  the  world  unto  our 
glory."  It  is  "  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for  them 
that  love  him,"  which  God  "hath  revealed  unto  us  by  his 
spirit," — it  is  "the  spirit  which  is  of  God." 

The  soul  must  govern  the  body,  the  spirit  made  alive  by 
religion  and  brought  into  tender  and  intimate  commun- 
ion with  the  Father  of  spirits  must  govern  the  soul.  The 
spirit  in  immediate  communion  with  God  receives  a  holy  in- 
spiration and  life  which  qualifies  it  to  govern  the  soul, 
to  govern  the  body  through  the  soul,  to  govern  the  world 
through  the  body  and  the  soul.  Indeed,  through  man  is  one 
of  God's  ways  to  govern  the  world,  and  whenever  mountains 
and  floods,  rocks  and  seas,  winds  and  waves,  lightnings  and 
tempests,  bow  to  man's  conquering  hand  they  but  capitulate 
to  the  God  that  is  in  man,  and  through  man  acknowledge 
Him  as  their  rightful  and  all-potent  Ruler.  You  see  that 
none  but  the  Christian,  he  that  is  so  developed  in  his  nature 
as  to  bring  the  lower  parts,  parts  respectively  under  the 
higher,  can  fill  man's  place  in  creation,  and  carry  out  God's 
plan  in  governing  the  world  through  man. 


MAN.  417 

But  with  respect  to  the  sinner  :  the  part  in  him  which  con- 
nects the  Christian  with  God,  investing  him  with  a  Divine 
significance,  is  dead  in  the  sinner  ;  therefore  the  sinner  sub- 
serves not  this  purpose  of  God  through  himself,  gives  God 
no  glory,  acquires  no  personal  merit  and  individual  gran- 
deur in  the  scale  of  being,  and  is  a  miserable  nought.  Yea, 
worse  :  Refusing  the  means  which  God  has  appointed  for 
the  revivification  of  his  spirit,  and  thus  occupy  his  appoint- 
ed place  in  the  scale  of  being,  God  fastens  him,  willing  or 
unwilling,  to  the  car  of  His  Providence  as  a  mere  beast,  and 
lashes  him  into  motion  with  His  dreadful  whip  to  carry  out 
designs  of  which  the  sinner  knows  no  more,  and  in  the  exe- 
cution of  which  he  derives  no  more  merit  than  the  horse  in 
the  cart  driven  by  the  huckster. 

Constituted  as  man  is,  he  is  the  whole  universe,  material 
and  spiritual,  in  miniature.  His  body  is  the  epitome  of  the 
world  in  which  he  lives,  and  over  which  he  is  king.  The 
solid,  the  fluid,  the  aerial,  the  gaseous,  have  all  met  in  his 
physical  constitution,  making  him  the  most  wonderful  and 
complete  physical  compound  in  nature.  His  body  is  nature 
embodied  in  miniature,  a  little  world  of  itself.  Yea,  more, 
epitomized  in  his  body  is  the  whole  universe,  in  comparison 
with  which  our  earth  is  but  an  atom.  The  solar  system  to 
which  the  earth  belongs  is  three  billions  of  miles  from  its 
centre  to  its  circumference.  How  small  the  earth  must  ap- 
pear in  such  a  system — indeed,  the  sun,  the  centre  around 
which  it  whirls  is  fourteen  hundred  thousand  times  larger 
than  it  is.  Yet,  I  doubt  not  but  that  the  earth  sustains  a 
much  larger  proportion  to  our  planetary  system,  than  our 
planetary  system  with  its  radius  of  three  billions  of  miles 
sustains  to  the  whole  universe. 

The  fixed  stars  which  peep  through  the  ocean  ether  upon 
us  at  night,  and  hang  a  sheen  of  gossamery  silver  upon  tomb- 
stones old  and  gray,  and  whose  little  rays  creep  though  the 
18* 


418  LECTURES. 

ivy-curtained  windows  of  castles  antique  and  sport  with  the 
ultimate  dust  of  the  blushing  rose  long  since  dissolved  which 
adorned  the  hair  of  the  belle  who  danced  along  the  floors  of 
those  halls,  now  deserted  and  gloomy,  untold  ages  ago ;  and 
whose  twinklings  have  been  flung  through  all  the  centuries 
upon  rock  and  wall,  and  rill  and  river,  are  but  the  splendid 
suns  of  other  systems,  the  nearest  of  which  is  seven  thousand 
times  farther  off  from  us  than  Neptune. 

But  oh,  let  us  borrow  the  wings  of  some  celestial  bird, 
and  leave  this  terraqueous  speck.  Now,  now,  we  mount 
aloof,  counting  as  we  go.  We  pass  the  moon,  we  pass  the 
sun,  and  like  an  arrow  from  the  bow  of  God  spring  beyond 
Neptune's  orb  rolling  to  the  music  of  the  spheres — counting 
as  we  go.  But  we  travel  too  slowly :  in  place  of  wings  let 
us  mount  the  vehicle  of  thought  drawn  by  coursers  swifter 
of  foot  than  the  lightning's  steeds  whose  flying  hoofs  roar  in 
hollow  thunder  upon  the  arches  of  heaven's  black  vault  in 
the  day  of  the  storm — swifter  of  foot  than  the  golden  shafts 
of  day  flung  by  the  god  of  light  from  Phoebus'  wheeled  and 
rolling  throne — and  thus  charioted  ask  God  to  send  an  arch- 
angel to  drive  us — and  then  in  earnest  let  us  go,  mounting 
upward,  counting  as  we  ascend  and  marking  the  numbers 
on  the  sapphire  floors,  azure  walls,  and  cerulean  portals  of 
every  succeeding  heaven  whose  stupendous  heights  we  climb 
and  pass  in  a  moment.  So  rapid  our  flight,  the  zodiac's 
glittering  belt,  and  constellations  undreamed  of,  flash  into 
the  rear  like  lightning,  while  onward  and  upward  we  speed, 
ploughing  luminous  tracks  whose  nebulous  ranges  enlarge 
into  universes ;  worlds  revolving  above  and  around  our 
flight,  and  passing  quickly  die  away  in  misty -lines  far  behind 
us. 

But  the  ultima  thule  is  still  beyond.  Earth  is  lost,  its  sun 
is  lost,  its  system  is  lost,  and  astral  fields  immeasurable  in- 
tervene, while  constellations  ever-springing  out  of  space,  and 


MAN.  419 

ever-multiplying  in  the  track  of  Night's  retreat  before  an 
ever-pursuing  creative  God,  in  strangest  beauty  and  newest 
form  invite  us  on.  But  with  count  confounded,  like  our  world 
sun  and  system  we  too  are  lost,  and  maddened  with  numbers 
to  us  infinite,  we  can  but  command  a  halt  where  we  can 
never  retrace  our  flight ;  or  in  the  utter  recklessness  of  our 
despair,  drive  on  till  the  wheels  of  the  chariot  of  thought 
wear  out  their  axes  and  go  wheeling,  and  whirling,  and  whiz- 
zing to  the  four  quarters  of  space,  leaving  us  a  helpless 
wreck  lost  in  a  wilderness  of  systems  where  God  can  only 
find  us. 

But  however  numerous  other  worlds  may  be,  they  are  all 
similar  to  ours.  If  all  worlds  are  similar  to  ours,  and  if 
man's  body  may  be  regarded  as  an  epitome  of  ours,  then  the 
same  body  is  an  epitome  of  the  whole  universe  with  all  of  its 
systems,  suns,  and  planets.  Man's  body  is  then  indeed  a 
little  world  of  itself — a  mikros  cosmos,  a  microcosm,  or  epi- 
tome of  this  great  world,  the  makros  cosmos,  macrocosm. 
Not  only  is  man's  body  an  epitome  of  the  material  universe, 
but  his  spirit  may  be  recognized  as  an  epitome  of  the  spiritual 
universe.  Whatever  is  involved  in  the  constitution  and 
nature  of  a  spirit,  and  whatever  be  the  phenomena  of  the 
spiritual  world,  all  have  met  in  man's  spirit  and  constituted 
it  the  miniature  embodiment  of  all  spiritual  being. 

Man  assumes  the  place  before  our  minds  as  the  whole  uni- 
verse in  miniature.  The  material  and  spiritual  worlds  have 
united  in  his  constitution,  and  compounded  he  stands  forth 
the  most  wonderful  and  anomalous  being  in  his  constitution 
in  universal  being.  He  is  the  only  being,  so  far  as  we  know, 
that  is  so  complex,  and  so  perfect  in  his  complexity,  and  in 
the  constitution  of  whom  the  nature  of  every  world  and  angel 
is  represented — the  precedence  of  the  spiritual  over  the  ma- 
terial as  seen  in  the  outside  universe  being  preserved  in  him. 
He  is  the  only  being,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  whose  constitution 


420  LECTURES. 

the  mystery  of  the  union  between  spirit  and  matter  in  one 
personality  is  practically  solved.  He  is  the  only  being,  so 
far  as  we  know,  where  such  a  complexity  is  cognized  by  one 
consciousness.     I  say  "my  body" — "my  spirit." 

Being  both  material  and  spiritual,  man  is  the  connective 
between  the  material  and  spiritual  in  the  unity  of  the  system 
of  God.  If  man  did  not  exist,  God's  system  would  be  in  two 
parts,  but  as  he  does  exist,  the  material  and  spiritual  unite  in 
him,  he  having  both  a  body  and  a  spirit,  and  God's  system  is 
one.  The  material  is  a  unity,  and  from  all  of  its  parts  it 
sends  up  cords  which  unite  in  man's  body.  The  spiritual  is 
a  unity,  and  from  all  of  its  parts  it  sends  down  cords  which 
unite  in  man's  spirit.  Now  man's  body  containing  all  the 
ends  of  the  material,  and  man's  spirit  containing  all  the  ends 
of  the  spiritual  cords,  are  united  in  one  being,  one  individual 
soul,  and  God's  system  in  virtue  of  the  union  is  then  one. 

The  created  world  is  a  grand  building  whose  foundations 
were  laid  upon  the  crystalline  rocks  of  the  Azoic  age,  and 
with  every  element  of  nature,  and  every  animal  of  earth,  air 
and  water  employed,  and  with  a  thousand  subterranean 
forges  and  volcanic  furnaces  in  full  blast,  and  with  storms, 
and  floods  and  drifting  ice  to  assist,  the  edifice  slowly  arose 
through  all  the  epochs  and  periods  of  the  several  geological 
ages  to  the  splendid  era  of  mind,  when  man  the  top-piece 
was  made  and  laid  in  its  place.  Nature  is  a  building  and  its 
top-piece  is  man.  Upon  this  material  building  the  spiritual 
rises  to  God,  and  its  under-piece  is  man.  Man  is  the  highest 
in  the  material  and  lowest  in  the  spiritual,  lying  between  the 
two,  and  uniting  the  two,  his  spirit  uniting  with  the  spiritual 
above,  his  body  uniting  with  the  material  below,  and  both 
spirit  and  body  uniting  together  in  his  individual  soul  per- 
fecting the  unity  of  the  whole — and  a  grander  building  than 
Babel's  tower  reaches  with  unbroken  wall  from  earth  to 
heaveq. 


MAN.  421 

Everything  ascends  by  regular  gradations  from  inorganic 
dust  to  God.  The  whole  constitutes  a  chain  of  life  and  be- 
ing grappling  on  in  close  connection  to  inorganic  rock  by 
cryptogamic  and  protozoic  links  and  ascending  from  vegeta- 
bles through  various  classes,  orders,  genera,  and  species  of 
the  grand  Radiate,  Moluscan,  Articulate,  and  Vertebrated 
divisions  of  the  animal  kingdom  rise  into  the  spiritual  through 
man,  the  highest  of  the  Vertebrata,  and  stretch  away  through 
the  cherubic  and  seraphic  ranks  in  heaven's  hierarchy  to 
God,  linking  on  to  His  nature  and  fastening  all  worlds  to 
Him  as  their  primal  cause,  their  sovereign  head,  their  royal 
Archetype,  their  essential  Centre. 

The  chain  connecting  dust  with  God  is  composed  of  several 
minor  parts.  Its  lowest  part  is  composed  of  vegetable  links, 
the  next  part  of  animal  links,  the  next  part  of  spiritual  Jinks. 
If  I  may  so  express  it  there  are  compound  links  which  bind 
the  several  parts  together,  and  while  the  lines  of  distinction 
between  the  parts  are  real,  though  so  fine  sometimes  as  to 
be  nearly  invisible,  yet  there  are  links  of  connection  between 
the  parts  which  appear  to  partake  in  some  degree  of  the 
nature  of  both  the  parts  they  connect.  Though  science 
says  that  every  link  in  the  chain  must  belong  to  only  one  of 
the  parts,  yet  it  cannot  be  disputed  that  rocks  and  vegetables 
are  united  by  links  which  appear  to  be  part  rock  and  part 
vegetable,  and  that  vegetables  and  animals  are  united  by 
links  which  appear  to  be  part  vegetable  and  part  animal. 
One  thing  is  certain,  the  connection  between  the  parts  is  so 
close  that  scientific  men  themselves  have  failed  in  unanimity 
to  decide  to  which  part  of  the  chain  many  of  the  interme- 
diate links  belong,  and  furthermore  it  is  certain  that  man,  the 
link  which  connects  the  animal  and  spiritual  in  the  chain,  is 
a  compound  link  partaking  of  the  nature  of  the  parts  he 
connects,  being  both  animal  and  spiritual.  This  fact  seems 
to  throw  a  significance  upon  the  links  in  the  connection  of 


422  LECTURES. 

the  parts  below  him.  Some  of  the  parts  of  the  chain,  how- 
ever, lap  over  and  are  doubled.  For  instance  :  rocks  and 
animals  are  united  directly  with  each  other  by  intermediate 
links  without  the  intervention  of  the  vegetable  links  ;  and 
God  and  man's  spirit  are  united  directly  with  each  other  by 
our  Immanuel  the  God-man,  without  the  intervention  of 
angelic  links.  Thus  the  chain  of  life  and  being  pendu- 
lously  dropping  from  God  to  the  lowest  forms  of  matter,  is 
perfect  in  its  unity,  in  the  graduation  of  its  descent  and  in 
the  connection  of  its  links. 

Yet  it  is  separable  into  two  great  divisions ;  the  lower  end 
of  the  chain  is  material,  the  upper  end  is  spiritual — two  parts 
so  unlike  in  their  nature  that  the  link  which  binds  them  into 
the  unity  of  one  chain  must  be  the  most  important  link  in 
its  entire  length.  In  the  angelic  and  spiritual  division  of 
the  chain  we  have  Psychical  and  Spiritual  life,  in  the  purely 
material  division  we  have  organic  and  animal  life  ;  but  the 
chain  is  in  two  parts — the  lower  part  lies  in  tangled  coil 
upon  the  Azoic  rocks,  the  upper  part  dropping  down  from 
God  is  swinging  in  space  a  chain  of  connection  with  nothing 
to  connect.  Now  man  is  that  grand  compounded  connec- 
tive which  interlocks  with  the  material,  organic,  and  animal 
below  him,  and  the  immaterial,  pyschical,  and  spiritual 
above  him,  making  the  chain  of  life  and  being  a  beautiful 
and  useful  unity. 

Behold  the  chain  /  First  as  a  chain  of  being  ; — its  arch- 
angelic  links  !  its  angelic  links  !  its  animal  links  !  its  vege- 
table links  !  Behold  the  chain  in  its  original  and  unimpaired 
unity  as  on  the  sixth  demiurgic  day  completed,  it  dropped  in 
order,  symmetry,  and  light  down  through  chaos  and  dark- 
ness, with  the  eye  of  God  flashing  down  its  entire  length, 
kindling  every  link  into  beauty  and  glory.  From  Deity  to 
dust  down,  down,  it  descended,  and  to  and  fro  it  swung,  in- 
stinct with  harmony,  a  tuneful  chain  along  which  diapasons, 


MAN.  423 

from  the  softest  note  in  sublime  crescendo  rose  in  thunder 
ing  melodies  to  God.  There  it  hung  a  thing  of  beauty, 
graceful,  lovely,  sublime,  magnificent — the  expression  in  the 
concrete  of  Heaven's  ideal,  the  embodiment  in  charming 
unity  of  Heaven's  design,  the  incorporation  of  the  Infinite 
Benevolence  5 — the  central  link,  man  the  little  Kosmos, 
wondrously  compounded,  in  the  meanwhile  holding  in  lawful 
wedlock  the  spiritual  and  material,  heaven  and  earth,  God 
and  rocks,  together.  There  it  hung,  its  highest  link  eclipsed 
and  invisible  in  the  splendid  glory  of  the  Infinite  glory 
waning  yet  dazzling  down  to  man ;  the  sub-central  and 
lower  links  scintillant  and  bright  with  the  milder  light  of  a 
created  glory ;  declining  softly  to  its  lowest  link,  where 
worlds  and  stars  appendant  shone  in  twilight  yet  golden 
beauty.  Its  highest  link  bathed  in  the  splendors  of  noon, 
its  lowest  links  slept  in  the  lap  of  mellow  evening. 

Satan  hated  the  God  who  conceived  and  made  such  a 
chain  and  who  loved  and  blessed  it — and  separated  from 
God,  cast  out  of  heaven,  cut  off  from  communion  with  the 
good,  thrown  out  of  the  unity  of  the  chain  of  normal  being, 
sin-polluted,  self-cursed,  ostracized  and  damned,  he  stood 
back  in  darkness  upon  the  grim  arches  of  the  gate  of  hell, 
beyond  whose  iron-ribbed,  murky,  and  yawning  arcades  lie 
the  bitumenous  fields  and  sulphurous  seas  of  reeking  perdi- 
tion, and  gazed  with  eyes  of  kindled  envy,  burning  malice, 
and  hellish  hate  at  the  glorious  consecutive  series  of  inter- 
locking links,  connecting  basest  matter  with  purest  spirit ; 
and  with  fell  and  desperate  purpose  resolved  to  destroy  the 
chain,  to  cut  off  all  organic  connection  between  the  Crea- 
tor and  his  works,  to  thwart  the  plans  of  the  God  whom 
he  detested,  and  in  the  highway  of  the  universe  to  mur- 
der man,  and  rob  heaven  of  man's  soul.  To  carry  out  his 
atrocious  design  he  arrayed  himself  in  Hephaestian  armor 
wrought  in  infernal  forges,  with  mailed  coat  of  adamantine 


424  LECTURES. 

rings,  with  cuirass  of  solid  fire,  and  horrid  helmet  plumed 
with  the  wing  of  the  thunder  and  tremendous  shield  cov- 
ered with  Gorgon  emblazonry.  And  mounting  his  hell-born 
steed,  black  as  night  and  shod  with  fire  and  brimstone,  he 
levelled  his  burning  lance  at  man  the  central  link.  And 
with  the  speed  of  the  whirlwind  and  the  noise  of  the  tem- 
pest, more  terrible  than  demogorgon  foul  or  Orcus  damned, 
he  rushed  upon  the  chain  like  a  thunderbolt;  his  lance 
struck  and  shivered,  'twas  true — but  man  was  ruined. — 
Spirit  and  Matter  uniting  in  man  were  separated  and  man's 
body  tumbled  down  to  dust,  and  his  disembodied  spirit  went 
shrieking  into  Hades — and  the  great  chain  of  life  and  being 
was  sundered  in  twain,  and  the  upper  end  writhing  in  every 
shivering  link  swept  in  rapid  vibrations  clean  across  the 
sky;  while  stars  and  worlds  below,  their  music  all  ruined, 
and  jarring  and  groaning  upon  their  axes,  fell  from  God, 
roaring  through  the  subtle  ether  in  awful  momentum  as  they 
plunged  headlong  down,  down,  down  through  space — and  fall- 
ing yet  they  would  have  been,  had  not  Jesus  caught  the 
broken  chain,  and  holding  with  the  other  hand  to  the  throne 
of  God,  united  it  directly  with  heaven  by  an  incarnation,  in 
his  own  blessed  nature,  and  addressed  himself  to  the  work 
of  the  restoration  of  a  normal  and  original  unity  by  provid- 
ing for  man's  redemption  and  resurrection. 

Then,  oh,  then,  spirit  and  matter  united  in  closer  bonds 
in  man  restored,  the  chain  will  be  a  unity  forever. 


LECTURE   III. 


MUSIC. 


THERE  is  nothing  but  what  has  its  ideal.  There  is  such 
a  thing,  if  we  can  properly  call  it  a  thing,  which  we 
express  by  the  word  Beautiful.  There  is  real  beauty,  and 
ideal  beauty.  Real  beauty  is  always  imperfect,  therefore  it 
is  finite  ;  ideal  beauty  approaches  the  perfect,  approaches 
the  infinite,  ultimating  in  God,  the  principle  of  all  things,  the 
principle  and  perfected  ideal  of  beauty.  Whenever  the  im- 
agination conceives  an  ideal,  it  feels  at  once  the  tendencies 
of  its  ideal  to  the  immeasurable  and  boundless — to  the  in- 
finite. 

The  reproduction  of  the  ideal  by  the  genius  of  man,  giving 
to  form  an  expression  which  reaches  beyond  the  senses  and 
awakens  in  the  mind  the  sentiment  of  the  beautiful  and  in- 
finite, is  Art.  The  great  object  of  art  is  not  to  express 
the  real,  but  the  ideal.  Art,  to  awaken  in  the  mind  the 
sentiments  of  the  beautiful  and  infinite,  and  which  it  must 
do  or  it  is„not  art,  must  address  itself  to  the  senses,  and 
through  them  touch,  penetrate,  and  excite  the  incarnated 
soul.  Of  the  five  senses  the  sentiment  of  beauty  can  only  be 
conveyed  to  the  soul  through  the  eye  and  ear,  therefore  the 
arts  are  divided  into  two  classes  :  arts  addressed  to  the  eye, 
and  arts  addressed  to  the  hearing.  Among  the  arts  ad- 
dressed to  the  hearing  is  Music.  Music  is  an  art.  It  is  not 
the  first  of  arts,  however,  and  it  has  not  expression  in  the 
same  degree  and  direction  as  some  other  arts,  yet  of  all  arts 


426  LECTURES. 

it  penetrates  the  mind  and  stirs  it  more  deeply.  Its  pecu- 
liar province  is  within  the  range  of  the  pathetic,  and  though 
it  expresses  but  comparatively  few  of  the  sentiments,  yet 
that  few  it  expresses  profoundly.  It  excels  all  other  arts  in 
its  power  to  express  those  sentiments  which  are  allied  to  the 
infinite,  and  which  elevate  the  mind  towards  the  infinite.  It 
can  almost  waft  the  spirit  into  the  presence  of  God. 

Music  is  defined  to  be  "  the  science  which  teaches  the 
properties,  dependencies,  and  relations  of  melodious  sounds, 
.  ...  or  the  art  of  producing  harmony  and  melody  by  the 
due  combination  and  arrangement  of  sounds."  Sound  is 
defined  to  be  "  the  sensations  excited  in  the  organs  of  hearing 
by  the  vibrations  of  the  air  or  other  medium."  The  organ  of 
sensation  to  sound  is  the  ear.  The  two  prime  elements  of 
simple  music,  that  is  music  relieved  of  all  its  complications, 
and  of  all  that  is  adventitious,  are  harmony  and  melody. 
Harmony  is  an  agreeable  effect  on  the  ear  of  two,  or  more, 
proportionate  and  according  musical  sounds  heard  at  the 
same  instant.  Melody  is  an  agreeable  effect  on  the  ear  of 
two,  or  more,  succeeding  musical  sounds — it  is  the  "rhyth- 
mical succession  "  of  single  sounds,  or  single  sounds  pro- 
ceeding and  following  each  other  at  harmonic  intervals  or 
distances.  When  chords  instead  of  single  sounds  succeed 
each  other,  the  melody  is  complex,  and  is  called  modulation. 
Melody  is  generated  by  harmony,  and  is  one  of  the  forms  of 
harmony  ;  and  on  the  correctness  of  the  harmony  its  beauty 
and  excellency  depend.  It  is  a  succession  of  harmonies — a 
perception  of  sound  as  harmonizing  with  sounds  gone  before, 
and  retained  by  the  memory.  Harmony  addresses  itself  to 
the  understanding ;  melody  addresses  itself  to  the  emotions. 
Harmony  affords  an  intellectual  pleasure  ;  melody  excites 
the  feelings.  Harmony  is  science  ;  melody  is  sentiment. 
We  learn  harmony  ;  melody  is  inspired. 

But  some  sounds  are  musical,  harmonious,  and  melodious, 


MUSIC.  427 

and  other  sounds  are  unmusical,  unharmonious,  and  unme- 
lodious.  And  this  is  so  in  defiance  of  human  skill  to  produce 
the  contrary.  No  man  can  generate  music  out  of  essential 
discords,  and  e  converso.  There  is  an  immutable  law  gov- 
erning the  proportion,  combination,  and  succession  of  musi- 
cal sounds.  This  law  is  not  the  arbitrary  creation  of  any 
mind,  Divine  or  human.  Music  has  a  profound  philosophy. 
The  philosophic  and  abstract  base  of  music  is  found  in  the 
harmony  of  the  parts  of  the  universal  system  of  God,  enter- 
ing into  a  unity,  ultimating  in  God  Himself. 

It  is  a  philosophic  axiom  as  old  as  Plato,  that  all  unities 
imply  pluralities,  and  that  all  pluralities  must  ultimate  in 
unities.  God's  system  is  composed  of  parts,  yet  these  parts 
harmonize  in  their  being  and  action  into  a  unity,  and  in  their 
successive  harmonies  evolved  from  their  continued  being  and 
continued  action  present  the  abstract  idea  of  melody.  The 
whole  system  of  God,  of  which  He  is  the  Intelligent  Sen- 
sorium,  the  Royal  Archetype,  spiritual  and  material,  includ- 
ing the  government,  laws,  and  abounding  phenomena  of  both, 
is  a  perfect  unity.  Though  constituted  of  parts,  yet  these 
parts  are  not  independent,  but  wonderfully  and  accurately 
adapted  to  each  other  in  the  formation  of  one  united  whole. 
Every  grade  of  life  and  intelligence,  every  order  of  things 
— organic  and  inorganic,  animate  and  inanimate,  spiritual 
and  material,  solid,  liquid,  aerial,  ethereal,  ponderable,  and 
imponderable — are  adapted  and  adjusted  to  each  other  and 
to  universal  being.  The  whole  is  a  well-balanced,  symmet- 
rical, and  magnificent  unity. 

Examine  the  several  great  parts  of  God's  system  :  these 
are  a  unity  in  and  of  themselves.  The  material  universe 
is  a  unity  in  and  of  itself.  This  is  illustrated  by  the  inter- 
dependence and  interaction  of  all  natural  forces  ;  by  the 
correlation,  conservation,  and  indestructibility  of  all  the 
powers  of  the  physical  universe  ;  by  the  combination  and 


428  LECTURES. 

relation  of  all  the  elements  of  nature.  These  elements, 
though  each  is  essentially  different  from  all  the  others,  and  no 
one  of  them  is  dependent  upon  any  one  or  more  of  the 
others  for  its  individual  causation,  yet  by  an  elective  affinity 
or  attraction  of  some  kind  unite  into  masses  and  bodies,  till 
as  a  final  result  ponderous  worlds  are  formed,  and  their  parts 
bound  together  by  a  chain  of  reciprocal  and  homogeneous 
links — links  forged  by  the  arm  of  God  and  hammered  out 
by  His  fiat  in  the  workshops  of  eternity.  So  perfect  is  this 
unity  in  nature,  that  the  removal  of  one  element  would  change 
its  whole  constitution,  and  wreck  the  universe.  For  illustra- 
tion, remove  the  element  oxygen  from  nature,  and  ordinary 
combustion  would  be  impossible,  and  in  a  few  moments  after 
the  removal  there  would  not  be  a  living  creature  on  this  globe. 
This  unity  is  finely  illustrated  by  the  compensating  balance 
maintained  between  elements  and  life  in  this  world.  Ani- 
mals by  respiration  consume  oxygen  and  throw  off  car- 
Donic  acid  ;  plants  by  respiration  consume  carbonic  acid, 
decomposing  it  and  assimilating  the  carbon,  and  throw  off 
oxygen.  Animals  throw  off  that  which  plants  must  have, 
and  plants  throw  off  that  which  animals  must  have — thus 
created  constitutionally  with  reference  to  each  other,  and  in 
the  exercise  of  their  functions  keeping  up  a  perfect  balance 
in  the  perfect  unity  of  nature.  Also  some  plants  depend 
upon  animal  matter  for  their  growth ;  and  some  animals  de- 
pend upon  plants  for  their  existence.  The  annihilation  of 
some  species  of  plants  would  result  in  the  annihilation  of 
some  species  of  animals  that  feed  upon  them,  the  reverse 
also  being  true.  This  adaptation  and  adjustment  of  the 
character  and  degree  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  to  each 
other  have  been  true  in  every  age  A  the  earth's  history  •  - 
and  furthermore,  there  has  been  a  perfect  adjustment  of  both 
to  the  various  epochs  of  the  earth's  development  with  which 
they  have  been  synchronal. 


MUSIC.  429 

Indeed,  the  earth,  itself,  is  so  essential  and  integral  a  part 
of  the  solar  system,  its  destruction  would  probably  unbalance 
the  whole  system,  and  reduce  it  to  anarchy  and  chaos.  The 
solar  system  is  so  related  to  every  other  material  system,  its 
destruction  would  probably  unbalance  and  destroy  the  whole 
material  universe.  The  gravity,  motion,  and  aspect  of  every 
planet,  comet,  star,  and  sun,  are  mathematically  adjusted  to 
their  minutest  point  and  phenomena,  to  the  gravity,  motion, 
and  aspect  of  all  the  others.  An  undisturbed  mathematical 
harmony  reigns  supreme  throughout  the  universe.  The  spir- 
itual universe,  if  it  be  lawful  to  call  it  a  universe,  is  a  unity 
within  and  of  itself,  as  well  as  the  material.  All  of  its  parts 
exhibit  the  same  evidences  of  adaptation  and  adjustment  to 
each  other,  that  the  several  parts  of  the  material  universe  do 
with  reference  to  themselves. 

The  material  and  spiritual  universes  are  but  parts  of  one 
great  system,  which  great  system  is  of  itself  a  unity.  This  is 
evident  from  the  following  reasons  : 

1.  The  ends,  or  final  causes,  for  which  all  material  and 
spiritual  things  exist,  and  are  governed,  are  found  in  God's 
moral  government,  or  His  government  of  spiritual  and  moral 
beings  with  relation  to  moral  principles.  Do  volcanic  fires, 
rushing  through  the  ruptured  granite  of  the  earth,  pour  fiery 
cataclysms  upon  fertile  gardens  and  populous  cities  ?  Do 
academies,  seminaries,  colleges,  and  universities,  glittering 
like  diamonds  upon  the  dark  bosom  of  the  earth,  diffuse 
their  light  everywhere  ?  The  final  end  to  be  promoted  is  a 
moral  one.  For  this  purpose  suns  shine,  stars  twinkle, 
comets  blaze,  planets  revolve,  lightnings  flash,  thunders  roar, 
earthquakes  growl,  volcanoes  bellow,  hurricanes  howl,  rains 
descend,  dews  distil,  inventions  abound,  and  angels  fly.  All 
things,  all  natures,  all  principles,  all  causes,  all  effects,  all 
events,  find  the  reason  of  their  existence,  government  and 
Providential  action,  in  their  appointment  for  the  accomplish- 


430  LECTURES. 

ment  of  moral  results,  lodged  in  the  great  facts  of  God's 
moral  government.  If  the  ends,  or  final  causes,  for  the 
existence,  government,  and  action  of  spiritual  and  material 
things  is  a  unity,  it  is  evidence  of  the  unity  of  God's  system 
including  both. 

2.  The  unity  of  the  spiritual  and  material  is  evident  from 
the  abstract  nature  of  virtue.  Virtue  is  a  harmony  of  prin- 
ciples and  actions  with  a  law  generated  in  relations— abstract 
spiritual  relations,  and  physical  relations,  as  essentially  re- 
lated in  the  production  of  law  with  the  spiritual.  Here  we 
have  God's  government  of  principles,  and  His  government 
of  things,  the  spiritual  and  physical,  as  intimating  in  the 
moral,  rising  into  a  unity  of  which  virtue  is  one  manifesta- 
tion and  evidence. 

3.  This  unity  is  evident  from  the  concurrent  action  of 
physical,  spiritual,  and  moral  agencies  in  this  world.  Physi- 
cal agencies  are  working  upon  the  physical  structure  of  the 
earth,  and  improving  and  elevating  it,  in  the  precise  ratio 
with  the  improvement  of  man  by  the  operation  of  spiritual 
and  moral  agencies  upon  the  human  mind  and  character. 
Thus  simultaneously,  and  side  by  side,  have  all  the  agencies 
ever  worked.  Here,  again,  we  have  evidence  of  the  unity 
between  the  spiritual  and  material,  by  finding  the  key  of  this 
unity  in  the  moral. 

4.  This  unity  is  evident  from  the  unity  of  law — physical 
law  or  the  laws  of  nature,  the  law  of  mind  or  spirit,  and 
moral  law.  Neither  of  these  grand  codes  contains  any 
opposition  elements  to  the  others.  A  being  may  be  so  con- 
stituted as  to  be  under  all,  yet  be  able  to  obey  all.  Man  is 
such  a  being,  and  he  knows  that  to  obey  the  laws  of  nature 
involves  no  disobedience  to  the  laws  of  mind  or  morals  ; 
that  to  obey  the  laws  of  mind  involves  no  disobedience  to 
the  laws  ot  nature  or  morals  ;  that  to  obey  moral  law  in- 
volves no  disobedience  to  the  laws  of  nature  or  mind.     He 


MUSIC.  431 

knows,  furthermore,  that  to  disobey  any  one  of  them  brings 
the  violator  under  their  united  censure.  As  in  the  beginning, 
when  man  violated  the  moral  law,  the  laws  of  nature  con- 
spired against  him,  and  physical  death,  a  consequent  of  the 
penalty  of  moral  law,  is  inflicted  by  the  laws  of  cause  and 
effect  in  nature.  The  unity  of  physical,  spiritual,  and  moral 
law — the  laws  of  the  several  parts  of  God's  system,  is  evi- 
dence of  the  unity  of  the  spiritual  with  the  material  in  the 
unity  of  that  system. 

5.  This  unity  is  evident  from  the  interaction  of  mind 
and  sense  in  the  developments  of  science.  Theories  are 
born  within  the  sphere  of  mind,  experiments  are  performed 
in  the  sphere  of  sense,  and  theory  and  experiment  are  the 
two  necessary  elements  in  the  development  of  science  ;  and 
both  these  elements,  theory  and  experiment,  the  one  the 
child  of  mind,  the  other  the  child  of  sense,  have  a  mutual 
and  reciprocal  action  upon  their  individual  development  in 
the  development  of  science.  If  such  be  the  relation  between 
mind  and  sense,  or,  in  other  words,  between  spirit  and  matter, 
in  the  developments  of  science,  there  is  a  unity  between  the 
two,  and  the  truth  of  the  unity  of  God's  system  as  a  whole  is 
conceived  to  be  established. 

Now  the  unity  of  God's  great  system  is  but  the  transcript 
of  the  unity  of  His  essential  self.  He  is  the  origin  of  the 
system,  and  His  essence  is  the  primordial,  fundamental,  and 
abstract  base  of  its  existence.  He  sits  enthroned  in  the 
system  as  the  absolute,  supreme,  and  universal  First  Cause, 
into  which  all  the  phenomena  of  material  and  immaterial 
being  ultimate.  He  is  essentially  a  unity,  and  His  unity  is 
transcripted  in  His  system.  Being  a  unity  every  attribute 
of  His  nature  is  in  harmonious  adjustment  with  relation  to 
every  other  attribute,  therefore  we  have  a  harmony  of  powers 
in  God.  His  unity  being  transcripted  in  His  system,  the 
harmony  of  His  personal  and  essential  powers  is  the  arche- 


432  LECTURES. 

typical,  originative,  and  abstract  concord,  that  is  fundamen- 
tal to  every  expression  of  harmony  in  the  universe. 

Here,  in  the  harmony  of  things,  evolved  from  their  unity 
and  ultimating  in  God,  is  found  the  philosophic  and  abstract 
base  of  music.  This  thesis  may  be  illustrated  and  corrobo- 
rated by  a  few  brief  arguments  :  i.  Mind  from  an  immuta- 
ble principle  or  law  inhering  in  itself,  naturally  associates 
the  idea  of  music  with  the  harmony  of  things.  The  an- 
cient philosophers  wrote  about  "  the  music  of  the  spheres." 
They  believed  that  the  universe  had  a  grand  centre.  This 
centre  they  thought  was  a  mass  of  fire,  which  they  called  the 
"  Hearth  of  the  Universe,"  "  House  or  Watch-tower  of  Jupi- 
ter," "The  Altar  of  Nature,"  "  The  Mother  of  the  Gods." 
Around  this  centre  they  believed  the  sun,  moon,  and  earth 
revolved ;  on  the  outside  of  these  they  believed  the  planets 
revolved,  each  moving  in  a  crystal  orb;  they  believed  on  the 
outside  of  these  revolved  the  heaven,  which  was  a  solid  crys- 
talline sphere,  containing  the  fixed  stars.  They  believed 
that  the  respective  distances  of  the  circling  spheres  were 
regulated  according  to  "  numerical  proportions,  correspond- 
ing with  the  harmonic  distances  and  intervals  in  music  ;  and 
that  their  uniform,  harmonious,  and  sweetly  tuned  motion, 
therefore,  produced  the  sweetest  music.  They  assigned  two 
reasons  why  men  could  not  hear  it :  First,  because,  men  hav- 
ing heard  it  without  intermission  from  their  births,  it  was 
philosophically  and  necessarily  inaudible.  Second,  the  music 
was  so  loud,  various,  and  sweet,  as  to  exceed  all  aptitude  or 
proportion  of  the  human  ear,  therefore  could  not  be  heard  by 
men. 

Music  and  the  harmony  of  things  were  so  associated  in  the 
minds  of  ancient  philosophers,  that  because  Apollo  was  the 
god  of  the  sun,  by  a  very  pertinent  allusion  to  the  harmo- 
nious motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  they  made  him  the 
god  of  music.     Because  he  drove  the  chariot  of  the  sun,  for 


music.  433 

the  reason  before  given  they  made  him  lead  and  direct  with 
his  lyre  the  harmonies  and  melodies  of  that  universal  diapa- 
son "  the  music  of  the  spheres."  This  association  between 
music  and  the  harmony  of  things  in  the  human  mind,  is  as 
true  in  its  application  to  us,  as  it  was  in  its  application  to 
the  ancient  philosophers,  and  as  the  mind  never  associates 
two  things  unless  there  is  a  real  mental  perceptible  relation 
between  them,  it  shows  that  the  philosophy  of  this  hour  with 
reference  to  the  abstract  base  of  music  is  correct,  and  that 
the  key  of  all  harmony  is  found  in  the  unity  of  being. 

2.  A  violation  of  the  principles  of  harmony  and  melody 
in  music  creates  in  the  mind  the  feeling  of  destruction. 
There  is  a  difference  between  that  confused,  clashing,  mix- 
ture of  sounds  we  call  noise,  and  harmony.  Listen  to  the 
noise  of  an  earthquake,  a  volcano,  a  cataract,  a  storm,  and 
there  is  created  in  the  mind  the  sense  of  destruction.  An 
accomplished  symphonist  by  a  skilful  violation  of  the  laws 
of  harmony  and  melody  in  music,  if  the  orchestral  perform- 
ance is  equal  to  his  skill,  can  create  in  the  mind  sentiments 
similar  to  those  produced  by  a  tempest,  yet  he  cannot  render 
a  tempest  so  as  we  can  distinguish  it  from  an  earthquake. 
If  unharmonious  sounds  produce  in  the  mind  the  sense  of  de- 
struction, it  is  because  that  the  harmony  of  things  is  the  base 
of  music,  and  that  if  the  harmony  of  things  was  destroyed 
the  destruction  of  the  universe  would  be  the  result,  and  the 
two  are  naturally  associated  in  the  mind,  and  if  associated  in 
the  mind  is  evidence  of  our  philosophy — that  the  philosophic 
and  abstract  base  of  music  is  found  in  the  harmony  of  things. 

3.  The  natural  tendency  of  the  sounds  of  nature  is  to 
fall  into  harmony  with  each  other,  often  upon  a  common  key. 
Mr.  Gardiner,  a  distinguished  musical  author,  says  that  this 
common  key  is  "  the  key  of  F,  and  its  relative,  D  minor." 
Nearly  all  the  sounds  of  nature  seem  to  regard  this  as  their 
key;  and  in  this  key  nearly  all  the  music  of  the  fifteenth 

19 


434  LECTURES. 

century  was  written.  You  have  heard  the  music  of  the  in- 
sects. Mr.  Gardiner  tells  us  the  key  upon  which  many 
of  them  make  their  music.  The  hum  and  buzz  of  the  wings 
of  the  housefly,  the  mezzo  tones  of  the  honey  bee,  always 
produce  the  sound  of  F  in  the  first  space  ;  the  bumble-bee 
plays  the  double  bass  an  octave  lower  ;  and  the  door-bug 
drones  on  F  below  the  staff  in  the  bass  clef.  The  cricket, 
however,  chirps  his  triplet  in  the  key  of  B,  and  the  savage 
little  gnat  blows  his  trumpet  on  A  in  the  second  space. 
The  grasshoppers  were  extravagantly  complimented  by  the 
ancients  for  their  music.  Indeed,  they  assigned  them  a 
celestial  paternity,  as  the  offspring  of  Phoebus.  A  story  is 
told  by  Plutarch  of  Terpander  the  first  scientific  cultivator 
of  music.  He  was  playing  upon  his  lyre  at  the  Olympic 
games,  the  people  were  enrapt  with  his  music,  and  at  the 
height  of  their  enthusiasm  a  string  broke.  A  grasshopper 
quickly  leaped  upon  the  bridge,  performed  the  part  of  the 
broken  string  and  saved  the  reputation  of  the  musician. 

You  have  heard  the  music  of  the  birds — the  soft  and  plain- 
tive nightingale;  the  chattering  magpies ;  that  miniature 
organ,  the  canary,  piping  and  singing  away  till  its  little  quills 
quivered  with  its  music;  the  mimus  polyglottus,  or  mocking- 
bird, which  like  some  preachers  has  no  song  of  its  own  ;  and 
the  lark  chanting  its  beautiful  song  at  the  very  gate  of  the 
skies ; — their  songs  proceeding  according  to  the  laws  of  har- 
mony. Mr.  Gardiner  says  that  the  chanticleer  crows  his  five 
notes  commonly  in  the  key  of  B,  that  the  cuckoo  sings  in 
the  key  of  D,  and  that  the  owl  hoots  in  B  flat.  He  says 
that  the  horse's  whinny  is  a  short  tune  of  semitones,  running 
through  every  half  tone  in  the  scale.  The  donkey,  though  a 
very  bad  musician,  yet  quite  as  good  as  some  mammal  bipeds 
of  the  genus  homo  I  have  heard,  does  not  in  his  awful  bray- 
ings  ignore  the  music  scale,  though  his  harmonies  are  terrific, 
and  his  climax  horrible.     When  dogs  are  affected  by  music, 


music.  435 

they  often  bark  or  howl,  and  the)  do  it  upon  some  of  the 
notes  of  the  music  which  affects  them. 

The  very  wind  blowing  towards  the  Orient  to  welcome  the 
rising  sun,  or  shifting  to  the  Occident  to  fan  the  sun's  fiery 
face  and  lull  him  to  sleep  in  the  cradle  of  the  west,  fills  the 
air  with  harmony,  and  according  to  its  degrees  of  strength 
and  speed  makes  some  of  the  sweetest  diminuendos,  and 
some  of  the  grandest  crescendos  in  nature — though  it  may 
have  nothing  but  the  cranny  of  a  cottage  for  its  trombone, 
and  nothing  but  the  fibrous-shaped  leaf  of  the  mountain  pine 
or  the  barkless  limb  of  a  dead  old  oak  for  its  harp.  It  is 
said  by  those  who  profess  to  know,  that  the  lyre  was  sug- 
gested to  the  inventor  by  the  wind  vibrating  the  dried  sinews 
stretched  across  the  shell  of  a  dead  tortoise  ;  and  that  the 
invention  of  the  harp  was  suggested  by  the  twang  of  a  bow- 
string. In  some  of  the  Greek  classics  the  invention  of  both 
is  referred  to  Apollo — he  having  found  the  tortoise  on  the 
banks  of  the  Nile,  and  hearing  the  twang  of  his  sister  Diana's 
bow.  All  sounds  in  nature  have  a  tendency  to  fall  into 
harmony  with  each  other.  This  universal  tendency  to  har- 
mony in  sound  is  another  illustration  and  corroboration  of 
our  thesis. 

4.  There  is  no  music  without  time  and  accent — and  both 
of  these  it  derives  from  nature.  Music  proceeds  by  regularly 
measured  movements,  and  with  regularly  recurring  accents 
— in  other  words,  it  proceeds  in  rhythmical  order.  Such  a  law 
we  feel  to  be  natural ;  if  we  feel  it  to  be  natural,  it  is  a  law  of 
nature  ;  if  it  is  a  law  of  nature,  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  har- 
mony of  things.  So  natural  is  this  law  that  language  and 
poetry  seem  to  be  governed  by  it  equally  with  music.  It  is 
the  very  basis  of  their  rhythm.  Mr.  Gardiner  in  substance 
thus  illustrates  this  principle  :  In  the  Trochee  and  Iambic 
the  syllables  move  in  triple  time, — three-eighths — in  the 
Dactyl   and   Spondee    they  move   in    common   time — two- 


436  LECTURES. 

fourths.  The  strains  of  music  are  always  even,  it  is  so  with 
the  phrases  and  strains  of  poetry.  The  strains  of  music  have 
always  an  equal  number  of  measures,  the  lines  of  poetry 
have  always  an  equal  number  of  accents.  Musical  accents 
always  fall  on  the  musical  bars,  poetical  accents  always  fall 
on  the  poetical  bars.  Mr.  Gardiner  illustrates  these  several 
principles.  This  law  of  music  appears  to  be  the  law  of  every- 
thing else,  hence  a  law  of  nature,  and  we  have  another  illus- 
tration and  corroboration  of  our  thesis. 

5.  The  pitch  of  tones  can  be  communicated.  Sound  a 
tone  into  a  piano,  and  only  one  string  responds  to  it,  that  is 
the  string  whose  pitch  is  the  same  with  the  tone  sounded. 
Change  the  pitch  of  the  tone  and  the  fact  remains,  that  string 
whose  pitch  is  the  same  with  the  pitch  of  the  tone  you  sound 
alone  responds.  I  have  tried  it,  you  try  it.  Stand  in  front 
of  a  wall  or  mountain,  and  sound  a  full  loud  tone.  The 
echo  comes  back  preserving  the  very  pitch  you  gave  the 
tone.  The  echoes  may  multiply  by  repetition  from  wall  to 
wall,  and  mountain  to  mountain,  and  the  vibrations  of  the 
air  may  grow  so  feeble  that  the  tone  sinks  to  a  murmur,  yet 
to  the  last  the  same  pitch  of  tone  is  preserved.  If  the  pitch 
of  tones  can  be  communicated,  it  is  evidence  of  the  harmony 
and  unity  of  things,  and  of  the  relation  of  music  to  the  har- 
mony and  unity  of  things,  and  corroborative  of  our  thesis,  that 
in  the  harmony  of  things,  evolved  from  their  unity,  is  found 
the  philosophic  and  abstract  base  of  music. 

The  thesis,  that  the  philosophic  and  abstract  base  of 
music  is  found  in  the  harmony  of  the  parts  of  the  universal 
system  of  God,  entering  into  a  unity,  ultimating  in  Himself, 
is  sufficiently  illustrated;  and  we  are  now  prepared  to  know 
why  some  sounds  are  musical,  harmonious,  and  melodious, 
while  others  are  unmusical,  unharmonious,  and  unmelodious. 
The  reason  is,  that  music  being  the  abstract  harmony  of 
things  concreted  in  the  form  of  aerial  vibrations,  some  sounds 


music.  437 

express  intervals  and  proportions  which  are  true  to  nature, 
while  others  express  intervals  and  proportions  which  are  false 
to  nature — violative  of  the  abstract  harmony  and  unity  of 
things.  This  answer  may  appear  like  the  restatement  of  the 
question,  but  it  is  not  so  ;  for  it  reveals  a  reason  for  the 
phenomena  involved  in  the  question,  which  is  found  beyond 
the  mere  abstract  fact  of  musical  harmony  and  melody,  in 
the  abstract  harmony  involved  in  the  unity  of  the  system  of 
God,  ascending  to  the  ultimate  in  the  unity  of  God.  Be  the 
subject  of  the  reasoning  what  it  may,  the  mind  can  go  no 
further  than  God, — and  if  the  reasoning  be  with  reference  to 
a  first  cause,  and  its  subject  be  objective,  it  will  always  go 
thus  far. 

But  man  can  make  music,  and  appreciate  it— Why  ?  i .  Be- 
cause of  the  harmony  of  man's  powers,  and  the  unity  of 
man's  nature.  God  is  essentially  a  unity,  and  His  powers 
therefore  essentially  a  harmony.  Man  is  a  miniature  duplicate 
of  God.  All  cords  of  unity  and  harmony  begin  in  God, 
and  proceeding  through  His  entire  system  unite  in  man. 
They  proceed  from  God  by  divergence  and  meet  in  man 
by  convergence.  God's  system  is  an  ellipse,  and  He  and 
man  are  the  foci.  Man  is  the  image  of  God.  In  fact, 
God  declared  before  He  made  man  that  He  would  make  him 
according  to  a  pattern  found  in  Himself.  Such  being  man's 
nature,  his  constitution,  though  complex,  is  a  unity,  and  his 
powers  are  a  harmony,  corresponding  with  the  harmony  of 
things  one  of  whose  natural  expressions  in  the  concrete  is 
music.  Our  ideas  of  such  a  man  are  naturally  expressed  by 
the  use  of  musical  terms.  We  say  that  he  has  no  jarring  or 
discordant  elements  in  his  constitution,  that  he  enjoys  a 
sweet  concord  of  powers,  that  he  is  full  of  music. 

Sin,  a  foreign  element  in  the  system  of  God,  is  destructive 
of  unity  and  harmony.  And  in  its  effect  upon  human  char- 
acter, if  it  reaches  its  maximum  development,  it  so  subverts 


43^  LECTURES. 

the  order  of  man's  constitution  and  distracts  his  powers,  that 
no  music  is  left  in  him.  Shakespeare  recognizes  the  truth 
of  this  theory,  when  he  says  : 

"  The  man  that  hath  no  music  in  himself, 
Nor  is  not  moved  with  concord  of  sweet  sounds, 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems  and  spoils." 

If  man's  powers  are  a  harmony  and  his  nature  a  unity, 
corresponding  with  the  harmony  and  unity  of  God's  system 
in  which  is  found  the  philosophic  and  abstract  base  of  mu- 
sic, we  have  a  strong  reason  why  man  can  make  music  and 
appreciate  it. 

2.  Because  man  is  a  unity  in  the  unity  of  the  system  of 
God.  The  material  universe  epitomizes  itself  in  man's  body, 
the  spiritual  universe  epitomizes  itself  in  man's  soul,  and 
both  unite  in  him.  The  cords  of  unity  descending  from 
the  spiritual,  and  ascending  from  the  material,  meet  and 
intersect  in  man's  constitution,  and  there  are  tied,  and  he  is 
the  tie.  The  chain  of  the  material  ascending  by  regular 
gradations  from  inorganic  rock  to  the  mammals,  the  chain 
of  the  spiritual  descending  by  regular  gradations  from  God 
through  angelic  hierarchies,  interlinks  in  man's  constitution 
— he  having  both  a  body  and  soul.  He  is  the  essential  cen- 
tral link  in  the  chain  of  the  unity  of  universal  being.  In  his 
normal  state,  as  God  made  him,  he  is  therefore  in  harmony 
with  both  the  spiritual  and  material.  Every  desire  of  his 
spiritual  nature  may  be  gratified  in  the  spiritual  system, 
every  desire  of  his  physical  nature  may  be  gratified  in  the 
physical  system.  The  respective  wants  and  necessities  of 
man's  bifold  nature  are  provided  for  in  the  respective  and 
corresponding  systems.  The  spiritual  world  is  adapted  to 
his  spiritual  sense,  the  physical  world  is  adapted  to  his  phys- 
ical sense.  Being  but  a  unit  in  the  unity  of  the  system  of 
God,  he  passes  into  the  grand  empire  of  harmony,  the  phil- 


music.  439 

osophic  and  abstract  base  of  music,  therefore  he  is  able  to 
make  music,  and  appreciate  it. 

3.  Because  the  soul  of  man  has  a  sympathy  with  the 
soul  of  nature.  Nature  is  a  grand  temple.  Most  all  the 
philosophy  of  the  day  expends  itself  upon  the  architecture 
and  magnificence  of  the  temple,  without  the  least  suspicion 
of  there  being  an  inhabitant  entempled  there.  All  nature 
is  instinct  with  a  kind  of  life — a  soul — which  gives  nature  an 
expression  which  no  language  can  describe,  no  man  can 
communicate,  yet  which  has  the  power  to  awaken  the  pro- 
foundest  sentiments  in  the  human  mind.  This  delicate  spir- 
it in  nature  no  man  can  see,  no  man  can  touch  it,  hear  it, 
taste  it,  or  smell  it,  yet  in  the  almost  unfathomable  depths 
of  his  soul  he  can  feel  it.  Why  do  deep  and  dense  forests 
sometimes  appear  dreamy  ? — they  cannot  dream.  Why  do 
some  landscapes  appear  as  if  they  were  smiling  ? — they  can- 
not smile.  Why  do  some  sceneries  in  nature  appear  so  sad 
and  melancholic  that  we  feel  like  weeping  ? — they  are  in- 
capable of  sadness  and  melancholy.  Why  do  some  moun- 
tain peaks  helmeted  with  everlasting  granite,  seared  by  the 
lightning's  flash,  and  scarred  by  the  thunder's  bolt,  appear 
to  frown  and  preach  of  the  sublime,  the  majestic,  the  terri- 
ble ? — they  cannot  frown,  or  preach,  and  they  are  as  harm- 
less as  the  atom  which  dances  in  the  sunbeam  of  evening, 
and  nestles  against  our  window-panes.  Why  ?  There  is  a 
soul  in  nature,  which  the  soul  of  man  has  so  deep  a  sympa- 
thy with,  that  he  designates  its  expressions  by  the  names  of 
the  sentiments  those  expressions  awaken  in  him.  The  soul 
of  man  being  in  such  sympathy  with  nature,  shows  that  he 
is  in  harmony  with  it,  and  is  himself  one  note  in  that  har- 
mony which  constitutes  the  philosophic  and  abstract  base 
of  music — and  we  have  another  reason  why  man  can  make 
and  appreciate  music. 

4.  Because    there   is   an    innate   feeling    in  man   which 


440  LECTURES. 

prompts  him  to  manifest  his  sentiments  in  music.  Sorrow 
loves  to  wail  in  plaintive  minors.  Joy  loves  to  revel  in  bold 
and  triumphant  majors.  How  often  we  have  heard  the 
maiden  sing  in  snatches  a  lively  canzonet,  as  she  has  run 
about  the  house,  along  the  halls,  across  the  halls,  and  up 
and  down  the  stairs,  when  some  little  billet-doux,  dropped 
by  the  post-boy  at  her  father's  door,  has  made  her  happy. 
How  often  we  have  heard  the  voice  of  the  country  maid 
ringing  through  the  farmyard,  as  she  has  scattered  grain  and 
crumbs  to  the  poultry,  and  the  half-fledged  chicklings  have 
perched  upon  her  arm,  and  fed  from  her  hand.  How  often 
we  have  heard  the  simple  melodies  of  the  Southern  negro, 
when  returning  from  the  field  on  Saturday  evening,  reverber- 
ating through  the  woods,  every  note  full  of  joy. 

How  often  we  have  heard  the  lover  sing,  with  his  eyebrows 
slightly  arched,  his  -languid  eyes  dreamily  anchored  in  the 
air — at  which  point  the  image  of  his  love  shakes  its  tresses, 
for  whose  every  hair  he  would  die  a  martyr's  death — his 
bosom  heaving,  his  panting  solo  sighing,  and  supreme  fool- 
ishness king  of  his  countenance  ;  his  song  changing  keys  and 
modes  as  often  as  heart  ever  vibrating  sweeps  like  a  pendu- 
lum between  two  extremes,  now  in  the  realms  of  ecstatic 
hope,  then  swinging  away  goes  throbbing  into  the  regions  of 
despondency.  We  have  sometimes  heard  the  victim  of  de- 
spair sing  his  appropriate  song  of  insuperably  painful  strains, 
wailing,  wandering,  and  shrieking,  his  very  notes  tramping 
upon  the  heart-strings  with  feet  of  fire.  We  have  often  heard 
the  Christian  sing — and  of  all  persons  he  is  the  greatest  singer, 
and  has  the  greatest  right  to  sing.  The  philosophic  nature 
ot  religion  is  to  harmonize  man's  powers,  and  tune  them  in 
unison  with  God  and  the  universe ;  hence,  religious  senti- 
ments above  all  others,  love  to  warble  in  harmonic  chords, 
and  carol  in  the  euphonies  and  mellifluous  strains  of  enrap- 
turing melody.     The  Christian  himself  is  a  harp,  whose  every 


MUSIC.  441 

quivering  string  is  replete  with  music.  Nothing  is  more  nat- 
ural than  for  man's  internal  feelings  to  seek  an  appropriate 
expression  in  music.  If  this  is  so,  it  is  because  that  man  is 
in  harmony  with  the  unity  of  nature,  the  philosophic  and  ab- 
stract base  of  music,  therefore  can  make  music  and  appreci- 
ate it. 

5.  Because  that  all  men  in  the  same  states  of  feeling  ex- 
press themselves  by  similar  sounds.  The  same  proportions 
and  intervals  of  sound  are  employed  by  all  men  to  express 
the  various  sentiments.  And  so  universal  is  this  law  re- 
garded, that  we  profess  to  be  able  to  judge  the  state  of  any 
person's  feelings  by  the  tones  of  his  voice.  If  this  is  so,  we 
have  additional  corroborative  testimony,  at  least,  of  man's 
unity  with  nature,  as  a  reason  of  his  ability  to  make  music 
and  appreciate  it. 

The  wonderful  relation  between  sound  and  mind  is  con- 
firmatory of  our  several  theses.  What  a  variety  of  sentiments 
of  all  shades  and  degrees  of  power,  are  awakened  by  the 
ordinary  sounds  heard  in  nature.  The  aeolian  whispers  of 
the  evening  breeze  ;  the  hum  of  insects  ;  the  notes  of  birds  ; 
the  murmurs  of  the  rivulet;  the  brawl  of  the  brook;  the 
laugh  of  the  cascade ;  the  scream  of  the  torrent ;  the  bel- 
lowing of  the  cataract ;  the  roar  of  the  tempest ;  the  crash 
of  the  vertically  descending  thunderbolt,  and  the  awful  and 
tremendous  echo  of  its  horizontal  rumblings,  are  all  sounds 
in  the  grand  orchestra  of  nature  which  inspire  the  mind,  till 
breaking  away  from  the  mortal,  material,  and  perishable,  it 
rises  above  the  stars  and  careers  with  steady  wing  in  the  very 
presence  of  its  Maker,  every  dazzling  plume  of  its  broad 
wing  instinct  with  sentiment,  and  quivering  with  a  holy 
afflatus. 

The  unity  of  God's  system  is  perfect.  And  as  the  nerves 
in  the  human  body  distributed  in  its  tissues,  primarily  pro- 
ceeds from  the  brain,  so  every  cord  of  unity  in  the  system  of 

iq* 


442  LECTURES. 

God  primarily  proceeds  from  Him  the  Royal  Encephalon 
and  Head  of  the  system.  And  as  no  nerve  in  the  human 
body  can  be  touched  without  the  sensation  being  conveyed 
to  the  brain,  and  through  the  brain  to  every  other  nerve, 
exciting  the  sympathy  of  all,  so  no  integral  part  of  the  sys- 
tem of  God,  however  small,  can  be  touched  without  the 
sensation  being  conveyed  to  God,  the  system's  imperial  Sen- 
sory and  Head,  and  through  Him  communicated  to  univer- 
sal being.  And  as  the  harmony  of  God's  system,  evolved 
from  its  unity,  is  the  abstract  base  of  music,  the  whole  con- 
stitutes a  harp  of  prodigious  proportions,  which,  if  one  string 
is  vibrated  from  bass  to  alto,  contralto  to  soprano,  discourses 
universal  music. 

It  is  scientifically  demonstrative  that  there  is  a  rare, 
subtile,  and  elastic  element  or  medium,  pervading  the  uni- 
verse. This  element  or  medium  is  called  ether.  Being  a 
finer  medium  than  air,  it  may  be  capable  of  conveying  finer 
sounds,  of  conveying  the  delicate  concords  and  melodies 
floating  spontaneously  from  the  delicately  adjusted  harmo- 
nies of  the  universe.  Angels  and  spirits  with  their  keener 
sense  may  be  able  to  hear  the  ethereal  strains  of  such  music, 
and  join  in  themselves.  This  may  be  analogous  to  the  music 
of  heaven,  and  that  instinctive  harmony  which  the  human  ear 
cannot  hear,  but  which  the  soul  with  its  finer  powers  can 
feel  in  its  sanctified  communion  with  God.  Dying  Chris- 
tians have  declared  their  rooms  were  full  of  celestial  music. 
The  bystanders  could  not  hear  it,  but  I  believe  the  dying 
Christians  did;  because  their  souls  were  gradually  losing 
their  dependency  upon  gross  material  organs,  and  in  the 
same  proportion  their  finer  powers  were  brought  into  use. 

Such  music  may  be  ringing  all  around  us,  yet  we  cannot 
hear  it.  The  human  ear  is  comparatively  a  coarse  organ,  and 
there  are  many  sounds  of  which  it  can  take  no  cognizance. 
As  there    are    confessedly  objects,  and   organized   objects, 


music.  443 

which  are  too  small  for  the  eye  to  see,  so  there  are  sounds 
too  fine  for  the  ear  to  hear.  Such  music  may  be  as  universal 
as  the  laws  of  harmony  which  give  it  birth.  And  the  uni- 
versal unity  out  of  which  these  harmonies  are  evolved  may 
be  so  perfect,  that  if  joy  but  strike  with  its  potent  plectrum 
one  chord  in  the  human  soul,  it  may  excite  into  sympathetic 
vibrations  every  other  chord  in  man's  nature  ;  and  as  man  is 
connected  with  universal  being,  every  musical  chord  of  unity 
in  the  universe,  till  harmony  floating  from  every  trembling 
string  stretched  from  rock  to  rock,  and  from  world  to  world, 
and  star  to  star,  from  man  to  God,  go  rolling  on  against  the 
conterminable  boundaries  of  light  and  night,  then  reflected, 
blend  in  overwhelming  strains  and  pour  their  thundering 
octaves  at  the  foot  of  the  Mount  of  God,  heaven's  choir  fin- 
ishing the  musical  climax. 

And  as  the  principle  involved  in  the  theory  of  the  "  music 
of  spheres,"  as  taught  by  the  Grecian  philosophers,  is  not  a 
mere  chimera  of  the  brain,  so  they  have  left  us  in  their  myth- 
ology their  ideas,  though  expressed  in  hyperbolisms,  of  the 
power  and  influence  of  music.  The  nine  muses  were  the 
daughters  of  Jupiter  or  Zeus,  and  Mnemosyne,  the  goddess  of 
memory.  Shortly  after  they  were  born,  the  nine  daughters 
of  Pierus,  King  of  Almathia,  challenged  them  to  a  musical 
contest.  They  met  on  Mount  Helicon.  When  the  daugh- 
ters of  Pierus  sung,  the  sky  became  dark,  and  all  nature  was 
thrown  out  of  harmony.  When  the  muses  sang,  the  rivers, 
seas,  stars,  and  heavens  were  motionless,  Mount  Helicon 
swelled  and  elevated  its  crest  with  delight,  and  had  not  the 
winged  Pegasus,  the  steed  of  the  muses,  struck  the  summit 
with  his  hoof,  it  would  have  reached  the  sky.  In  solemn 
evidence  of  the  truth  of  this  story,  where  the  foot  of  Pegasus 
struck  Hippocrene,  the  fountain  sacred  to  the  muses  burst 
forth,  and  flows  on  to  this  day.  The  daughters  of  Pierus,  for 
their  presumption,  were  metamorphosed  by  the  muses  into 


444  LECTURES. 

nine  different  kinds  of  birds.     Ovid  says  they  were  turned 
into  magpies. 

A  golden  fleece  was  nailed  to  an  oak  in  the  grove  of 
Mars,  in  Colchis,  a  country  between  Caucasus  and  Armenia. 
ALson,  the  King  of  Iolcus,  was  dethroned  by  Pelias.  Pelias 
promised  to  restore  the  kingdom  to  Jason,  ^Eson's  son,  if 
Jason  would  bring  him  the  golden  fleece  from  Colchis.  Jason 
undertook  to  do  it,  and  built  a  ship  which  he  called  Argo, 
and  selected  fifty  of  the  greatest  heroes  of  the  day  to  go  with 
him.  Orpheus,  the  poet,  musician,  and  philosopher,  was 
one  of  them.  The  music  of  his  lyre,  in  concert  with  his 
voice,  made  the  Argo  move  through  the  water,  the  oars 
of  the  heroes  or  Argonautae  keeping  time  to  the  harmony. 
The  power  of  his  music  delivered  the  expedition  from  many 
dangers  and  difficulties,  and  was  principally  instrumental  in 
obtaining  the  golden  fleece.  In  passing  the  isle  of  the  Sirens, 
whose  strand  was  whitened  by  the  bones  of  mariners  who 
were  irresistibly  attracted  by  their  melodious  songs,  and 
who  were  so  enrapt  that  they  forgot  home  and  friends,  and 
perished  for  lack  of  nutriment,  Orpheus  delivered  his  com- 
panions by  overpowering  their  music  with  the  strains  of  his 
lyre  and  the  tones  of  his  voice.  Eurydice,  the  wife  of 
Orpheus,  was  bitten  by  a  serpent,  and  died.  Orpheus  de- 
scended to  the  lower  world  to  obtain  permission  for  her  re- 
turn to  earth.  Armed  only  with  his  lyre  he  entered  Hades, 
and  gained  an  easy  admission  to  Pluto.  His  music  was  so 
enchanting  that  the  vulture  ceased  feeding  upon  the  viscera 
of  Tityus,  Tantalus  forgot  his  unquenchable  thirst,  the  wheel 
of  Ixion  ceased  its  revolutions,  and  Pluto  and  Proserpine 
conditionally  granted  his  request.  When  he  died,  the  muses 
carried  his  lyre  to  the  skies.  In  these  classical  legends  we 
have  illustrated,  though  extravagantly,  the  influence  of 
music;  but  that  its  influence  is  extensive  and  its  power 
great,  we  do,  know.     The  effect  of  music  upon  the  lowei 


music.  445 

animals  is  well  known,  but  its  real  influence  and  power  can 
only  be  estimated  when  we  notice  the  effect  of  that  influence 
and  power  upon  man. 

Music  can  elevate  the  soul,  giving  it  a  direction  with  vari- 
ous momenta  from  the  material  toward  the  spiritual,  from 
earth  towards  heaven,  from  matter  towards  God.  Why? 
i.  Because  the  mind  in  man  can  only  truly  appreciate 
music,  and  fully  feel  its  power;  and  whatever  affects  the 
mind  primarily,  and  not  the  body,  develops  the  mind's  indi- 
viduality, and  in  the  same  ratio  lessens  its  dependence  upon 
the  body,  and  has  a  tendency  to  the  ultimate  disincarnation 
of  mind,  or  the  assimilation  of  body  to  mind  by  spiritualiza- 
tion.  2.  Because,  music  being  educed  from  the  harmony 
of  things,  ultimating  in  God,  its  tendency  is  to  incline  the 
soul  to  spiritual  good,  and  as  a  converse  proposition  to  dis- 
incline it  to  evil.  The  effect  of  David's  harp  upon  Saul  was 
to  compel  the  evil  spirit  to  depart  from  Saul.  3.  Because, 
music  being  educed  from  the  harmony  of  things,  its  power 
is  communicative  and  social — educed  from  the  harmony  of 
things,  ultimating  in  God,  it  prepares  the  soul  for  commu- 
nion with  God.  For  this  purpose  some  of  the  prophets 
employed  it,  that  they  might  be  able  to  speak  the  mind  of 
God,  and  prophesy.  4.  Because,  music  being  educed  from 
the  harmony  of  things,  ultimating  in  God,  music  proceeds 
from  God  as  its  First  Cause,  and  proceeding  from  Him  must 
return  to  Him  as  its  Final  Cause,  and  it  must  needs  carry 
man  back  with  it  if  he  falls  into  its  current. 

Proceeding  from  God  as  its  First  Cause,  it  returns  to  him 
as  naturally  as  rivers  run  to  their  parent  Ocean.  Let  us 
fling  ourselves  upon  its  sanctified  waves,  and  let  them  bear 
us  to  the  other  shore,  as  they  break  in  glory  upon  the  celes- 
tial beach — that  beach  sown  with  gems  and  strewn  with 
golden  sand,  and  glittering  under  the  lambent  glories  of  hea- 
ven's   eternal   morning.     God's   great    system  is  one  great 


44^  LECTURES. 

harp,  and  all  His  system's  parts  are  its  harmonious  strings, 
tuned  by  His  own  artistic  hand.  We  all  have  our  parts  to 
play,  and  as  our  active  fingers  fly  our  strains  go  dancing  and 
kissing  up  the  undulating  strings  to  heaven.  We  all  have 
our  parts  to  play,  and  as  we  perform  our  task,  our  music 
vibrates  from  string  to  string,  ascending,  deepening,  widen- 
ing, till  it  thrills  the  universe ;  and  though  every  sentient 
being  out  of  hell  may  be  a  player,  and  each  constitute  a  mu- 
sical centre,  and  each  play  on  different  chords,  their  several 
strains  though  meeting,  crossing,  and  waving  and  passing 
through  each  other  in  one  apparently  infinite  entanglement, 
yet  preserve  without  confusion  their  individuality,  and  sound 
their  peculiar  notes  in  the  ear  of  every  star,  and  weave  their 
peculiar  harmonies  in  every  comet's  fiery  mane,  to  be  carried 
to  God,  the  Royal  source  of  music. 

So  strange  this  harp,  so  strange  its  chords,  our  words  and 
works  are  plectrums  whose  every  smiting  stroke  is  repeated 
on  every  string  of  unity  in  the  system  of  God,  and  sends  a 
corresponding  note  to  the  other  world.  Oh,  then,  let  no  word 
or  work  mar  our  music,  and  send  a  discord  to  grate  on  the 
hearing  of  God.  If  we  dare  disturb  the  harmony  of  this  uni- 
versal diapason,  God  will  lock  us  up  in  an  anarchic  hell,  in 
that  outer  darkness  beyond  the  circumference  of  normal  be- 
ing, where  our  discords  may  noise  in  harmless  riot  forever. 
But  if  we  perform  the  parts  for  which  we  are  intended,  and 
perform  them  well,  we  will  die  with  heavenly  symphonies 
rolling  through  our  souls,  every  fibre  of  our  spiritual  natures 
thrilling  with  responsive  music,  and  upon  the  broad  waves  of  a 
universal  harmony  we  will  rise  to  heaven,  the  centre  of  that  uni- 
versal sphere  within  whose  circumference  creations  play  their 
parts,  and  from  which  every  thread  of  unity  radiating  connects 
every  atom,  element,  being,  and  thing  to  God,  and  there  hear 
the  melodies  generated  in  the  geometrically  adjusted  and 
interdependent  parts  of  the  universe,  and  hear  them  forever. 


music.  447 

The  philosophic  and  abstract  base  of  music  is  found  in  the 
harmony  of  the  parts  of  the  universal  system  of  God,  enter- 
ing into  a  unity,  ultimating  in  Himself.  But  with  the  music 
possibly  generated  in  the  harmonies  involved  in  the  unity  of 
things,  and  the  figurative  application  of  music  to  the  agree- 
ment of  human  character  and  actions  with  the  harmonies  in- 
volved in  the  unity  of  things,  and  educed  from  the  funda- 
mental and  central  thesis  of  this  lecture,  and  illustrative  of  it, 
I  have  nothing  further  to  do,  but  simply  invite  your  atten- 
tion to  the  sounds  around  you.  You  may  call  it  music,  or 
what  you  will,  but  listen  to  nature's  choir. 

Myriads  of  birds  give  us  the  soprano  ;  insects,  rivulets, 
and  breezes  sing  the  alto ;  hurricanes  and  tempests  scream 
the  tenor ;  and  thunders,  cataracts,  and  stormy  oceans 
roar  the  bass — and  the  music  began  the  first  week  of  crea- 
tion, and  without  intermission  its  melodies,  hymning  in  lul- 
labies over  the  cradles  of  infant  ages  or  breaking  in  requiems 
over  the  tombs  of  dead  and  buried  centuries,  have  rolled  on 
winter,  spring,  summer,  and  autumn,  and  are  now  sounding 
into  the  ears  of  the  eventful  present.  True,  the  insects 
which  perform  their  parts  now  are  not  the  insects  which  be- 
gan it ;  true,  the  birds  which  sing  now  are  not  the  birds 
which  sang  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  as  each  aerial  songster 
tottered  and  fell  from  the  bough  under  the  eye  of  God,  to  be 
reproduced  by  and  by  to  warble  amid  the  beauties  of  the  new 
earth,  or  to  rest  in  cold  oblivion  forever,  others  took  their 
places — and  the  grand  oratorio,  unceasing  and  ceaseless,  will 
sweep  on  till  its  harmonious  octaves  will  break  into  hallelu- 
jahs against  the  throne  of  the  Judgment. 

Now  listen  to  the  artificial  music  of  civilization.  Ten 
thousand  mechanics  hammer  out  the  soprano  upon  ten  thou- 
sand ringing  anvils ;  ten  thousand  revolving  spindles  make 
the  alto ;  ten  thousand  locomotives  yell  the  tenor  through 
their  metallic  nostrils,  and  roar  the  bass  along  musical  staves 


448  LECTURES. 

with  iron  lines  and  wooden  bars — and  this  music,  generated 
in  the  machinery  and  appliances  of  the  world's  civilization,  is 
never  silent,  but  day  and  night  goes  thundering  on,  and  will, 
till  continents  are  buried  in  fiery  immersion  beneath  the  lavic 
cataclysms  of  the  last  Great  Day. 

Now  listen  to  the  music  of  social  life..  Laughing,  merry, 
and  prattling  maidens  make  the  treble  ;  puling,  weeping, 
and  babbling  infancy  makes  the  alto  ;  sportive,  boisterous, 
and  vociferating  boyhood  shouts  the  tenor ;  holyday,  festi- 
val, and  political  assemblages  fulminate  the  bass.  And 
never  since  man  was  made,  and  he  had  a  tongue — and 
tongued  he  is,  both  male  and  female — but  what  the  yielding 
air  has  been  racked,  and  rent,  and  shivered  by  the  din  of 
human  voices,  multitudinous  and  innumerable ;  talking, 
quarrelling,  disputing,  clamoring,  brawling,  bawling,  squall- 
ing, grumbling,  murmuring,  moaning,  groaning,  whining, 
puling,  piping,  squeaking,  screeching,  screaming,  shrieking, 
snoring,  snorting,  howling,  growling,  shouting,  roaring,  till 
the  lunarians  are  astounded  with  the  hubbub — the  broad, 
good-natured,  squabby,  pinguid,  and  silly  face  of  whose 
King  greets  us  nightly  from  the  cold  and  chaste  orb  of 
which  he  is  the  Sovereign. 

There  was  a  time,  however,  as  the  old  story  goes,  when  for 
the  long  period  of  an  entire  minute,  every  tongue  ceased  its 
wagging,  and  every  man  was  more  anxious  to  hear  than  to 
speak.  But  attention  to  the  story :  Once  upon  a  time,  as 
all  orthodox  stories  begin,  acoustic  philosophers  said,  that  if 
every  man,  woman,  and  child,  were  to  hollow  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  the  aggregated  power  of  the  race  would  produce 
a  sound  sufficient  to  be  heard  to  the  moon.  To  attest  the 
truth  of  their  theory  they  caused  every  individual  in  the 
world  to  buy  a  chronometer,  and  wind  it  up  and  adjust  its 
time  with  the  time  in  London,  and  at  a  certain  minute  dur- 
ing a  certain  day,  open-mouthed  and  trumpet-tongued,  all 


music.  449 

were  to  hollow  with  the  utmost  power  and  compass  of  their 
voices.  I  suppose  arrangements  were  made  with  the  mar, 
in  the  moon,  to  telegraph  by  a  moonbeam  to  the  aforesaid 
philosophers  resident  upon  this  planet,  whether  he  heard  the 
sound,  or  otherwise  the  experiment  would  be  a  failure  ;  or  it 
may  be  they  selected  one  of  their  number  remarkable  for 
his  hearing,  and  rammed  him  into  a  mortar  huge  and  sent 
him  up  upon  the  sulphurous  breath  and  nitrous  pinions  of 
explosive  powder  ;  or  it  may  be  they  bid  him  climb  some  east- 
ern mountain,  and  as  the  moon  came  rolling  up  and  kissed  the 
mountain's  crest  to  attach  himself  to  her  chilly  lips,  and 
hold  on  there  till  the  critical  moment  was  past,  and  then  let 
go,  unkiss,  and  trust  to  the  gods  for  the  sake  of  science  to 
let  him  down  easy.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  the  eventful 
moment  to  prove  their  theory  arrived,  but  since  the  world 
was  made  there  never  was  so  still  a  time  ;  for  every  man, 
and  every  woman  for  once,  and  every  child  was  intent  on 
hearing  the  stunning  noise  and  forgot  to  hollow,  and  for 
once  the  world  was  as  mute  as  death.  I  believe,  however, 
that  an  old  deaf  woman  in  one  of  the  Feejee,  who  was  too 
deaf  to  hear,  herself,  screamed,  and  a  crack-voiced,  idiotic 
old  man  in  China — and  that  was  all ; — and  so  ends  the 
story. 

Now  listen  to  the  music  of  an  orchestra.  The  violins, 
violas,  violoncellos,  and  contrabassos,  or  double  bassos, 
forming  the  orchestral  centre.  Then  the  altissimo  tones  of 
the  flutes,  the  tender  tones  of  oboes,  the  energetic  notes  of 
the  clarionets,  the  complaining  notes  of  the  bassoons,  the 
melancholy  notes  of  the  horns,  the  martial  notes  of  the 
trumpets,  the  terrible  tones  of  the  trombones,  the  beat  of 
the  drums,  and  the  liquid  thunder  of  the  organ  rolling  in  the 
background,  and  a  competent  number  of  vocalists  perform- 
ing the  four  ordinary  parts  of  music — and  we  have  a  full 
orchestra.     How  charming  the  music  of  a  perfect  orchestra. 


450  LECTURES. 

Twin  harmonies  flit  like  angels  among  the  singing  strings, 
and  float  upon  every  wave  of  sound  which  radiates  from  the 
tuneful  lips  of  the  vocalists,  and  rises  from  the  sonorous 
horns  and  vibratory  drums — while  with  the  throbbing  of 
every  successive  chord,  giant  melodies  are  born,  and  entwin- 
ing their  great  arms  around  us  lift  us  to  God. 

Now  listen  to  the  music  of  sounding  bells.  What  a 
variety  of  sentiments  can  be  awakened  in  the  mind  by  the 
various  changes  rung  upon  church  bells.  Chiming  bells  stir 
the  soul  to  its  profoundest  depths.  Did  you  ever  hear  Old 
Hundred  floating  from  a  church  steeple  on  a  Sabbath  morn- 
ing, its  majestic  strains  and  deep-toned  measures  winding 
along  the  streets,  and  into  your  houses,  and  telling  you  in  its 
odd,  grand  way  that  God  had  descended  into  His  temple, 
and  was  waiting  for  your  worship  ?  I  have — and  it  was  the 
sublimest  invitation  to  repair  to  the  house  of  God  I  ever 
heard.  Now  listen  to  a  properly  organized,  instructed,  and 
competent  church  choir — ladies  singing  the  treble  and  alto, 
men  the  tenor  and  bass,  and  a  stupendous  organ  whose 
pipes  talk  harmony,  and  in  whose  deep  abysms  diapasons  of 
harmonic  thunder  go  rumbling.  Some  persons  think  that 
the  Devil  is  in  an  organ  ;  I  would  much  sooner  believe  he 
is  in  the  objector,  and  an  archangel  in  the  organ,  for  cer- 
tainly its  tones  are  the  most  wonderful  and  heavenly  of  all 
earthly  tones.  No  man  ever  heard  and  loved  an  organ,  but 
what  he  was  the  better  for  it.  An  instrument  which  uni- 
formly enkindles  in  man  the  sublime  and  holy  into  a  devel- 
opment which  for  the  time  being  crushes  out  their  oprosites, 
is  in  its  proper  place  when  it  is  in  the  house  of  God. 


LECTURE  IV. 

INTEMPE  R A  NC  E. 

"  Woe  unto  him  that  giveth  his  neighbor  drink,  that  puttest  thy  bottle  to 
him,  and  makest  him  drunken  also,  that  thou  mayest  look  on  their  naked- 
ness !  "— Habakkuk  ii.  15. 

IF  Satan  by  proclamation  was  to  reassemble  the  famous 
council  of  Pandemonium,  where  all  the  thrones,  princi- 
palities, and  powers,  of  hell  met  in  convention,  to  commis- 
sion and  dispatch  a  demon  to  earth,  best  qualified  to  arrest 
the  progress  of  civilization,  to  palsy  the  arm  of  philanthropy, 
to  retard  the  wheels  of  the  chariot  of  the  Gospel  of  the  Son 
of  God,  to  blight  the  tearful  hopes  of  the  fond  mother's  heart, 
to  blast  with  the  mildew  of  death  the  aspirations  of  youth,  to 
turn  widows  and  orphans  homeless  and  friendless  out  to  die, 
and  to  swell  the  population  of  their  own  dreadful  domain, 
they  could  not  have  sent  a  more  potent  fiend,  to  carry  on 
and  consummate  every  item  in  this  black  inventory,  than  the 
hideous  monster  intemperance.  His  successes  have  met 
hell's  most  sanguine  hopes.  This  moment,  he  has  millions 
of  our  fellow-creatures  chained  to  his  burning  car,  and  with 
wheels  rolling  in  blood  and  tears,  circumvolving  upon  their 
axes  like  lightning  down  the  slippery  highway  of  death,  he  is 
dragging  them  to  the  drunkard's  dreadful  home. 

Intemperance  is  the  foe  of  mankind.  He  merits  the  defi- 
nite pre-eminence  :  the  foe  of  mankind.  Not  a  weak  and 
feeble  one,  not  one  that  may  simply  be  held  in  contempt, 
and  winked  at.     No  :  but  a  powerful  enemy  who  goes  wher- 


452  LECTURES. 

ever  men  go,  and  erects  his  throne  wherever  men  live.  Go 
to  the  very  centre  of  civilization,  and  in  sight  of  our  churches, 
and  in  hearing  of  the  calling  bells  which  will  soon  toll  out  our 
funerals,  may  be  seen  a  liquor  shop  ycleped  "  Arctic,  Pacific," 
and  other  euphemisms,  substituted  for  more  offensive,  disa- 
greeable, and  appropriate  names,  with  its  sparkling  decanters 
and  Venetian  screen  or  something  equivalent,  in  every  block 
and  upon  every  square.  Go  to  the  outposts  of  society,  and 
nearly  the  first  smoke  of  the  pioneer  settlement  is  the  hateful 
fumes  of  a  distillery  curling  up  in  horrid  desecration  above 
"  God's  first  Temples,"  the  majestic  forest.  Go  to  the  way- 
stations  that  spring  up  like  magic  along  our  railways,  and  be- 
fore the  first  keen  whistle  of  the  locomotive,  and  the  thunder 
of  his  running  train  are  heard,  a  tippling  shop  is  among  the 
first  buildings  reared  to  welcome  the  iron  horse,  and  mark 
the  site  of  a  future  town. 

Let  us  define  our  term.  Intemperance,  like  all  generic 
words,  has  a  general  meaning.  But  it  is  the  purpose  of  the 
discourse  at  this  hour  to  discuss  it  specifically  in  its  appli- 
cation to  intoxicating  beverages.  Within  the  specific  bounds 
of  such  a  limitation  it  means  the  excessive  indulgence  of  the 
appetite  in  the  use  of  liquors  which  inebriate.  The  opposition 
term  is  Temperance.  This  is  also  a  generic  word,  but  as  the 
opposite  of  Intemperance  in  the  specific  application  already 
given,  it  means  the  moderate  and  proper  use  of  intoxicating 
liquors.  But  strictly,  as  the  use  of  such  as  a  beverage  can 
never  be  deemed  proper,  it  really  implies  then,  with  reference 
to  them,  total  abstinence.  A  man  can  see  that  the  use  of  nitric 
acid,  corrosive  sublimate,  or  any  other  poison  the  least  possi- 
ble portion  of  which  is  injurious  and  destructive  of  mind, 
health,  and  life,  cannot  be  characterized  by  the  word  Temper- 
ance. Of  the  lexicographical  terms  used,  I  prefer  abstinence 
to  temperance^  and  abstemiousness  to  either.  Temperance 
literally  means  the  moderate  use  of  intoxicating  liquors,  ab- 


INTEMPERANCE.  453 

stinence  their  entire  disuse  temporarily,  abstemiousness  their 
entire  disuse  habitually  and  forever. 

Let  us  notice  Intemperance  in  some  of  its  beginnings, 
that  we  may  arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  its  character,  and  the 
philosophy  of  its  development.  An  idle  boy  stands  among 
the  shifting  and  rapidly  developing  events  of  the  day.  He 
sees  mind  industriously  rivalling  mind.  He  sees  the  kindled 
eye  of  aspiration,  the  rushing  pinions  of  hope,  the  elevat- 
ing strides  of  science.  He  sees  some  chasing  honor,  some 
pursuing  with  unwearied  activity  the  paths  of  learning,  some 
following  the  plow,  others  with  hell  under  their  feet  and  the 
world  at  their  back  wending  their  way  to  heaven  in  search 
of  riches  which  never  perish.  Standing  upon  the  theatre  of 
life  he  is  astounded  with  the  voluble  din  of  three  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  forty-two  languages,  the  clink  of  machinery, 
the  hoarse  whisper  of  ambition,  the  cheerful  and  earnest 
shouts  of  contestants,  the  thunder  tread  of  civilization.  His 
young  heart  beats  with  excitement,  but  nothing  to  do.  Taught 
nothing  useful  he  thinks  of  nothing  useful.  Anything  which 
promises  to  relieve  the  dull  monotony  of  his  life  he  hails 
with  pleasure  ;  and  obeying  the  impulses  of  his  nature  so 
strangely  inclined  to  wrong,  he  plunges  into  dissipation — the 
first  dram  is  taken  and  he  is  ruined. 

A  youth  is  permitted  by  a  sinful,  parental  indulgence  to 
form  his  own  associations.  The  imaginative  and  impulsive 
preponderating  in  his  youthful  constitution,  he  will  in  the 
majority  of  cases  be  attracted  by  the  glitter  and  sparkle  of 
society,  and  he  will  select  the  gay  dissipationists  as  his  bosom 
companions. 

Assimilation  of  character  is  a  law  of  association.  The  as- 
similation proceeds  in  the  same  ratio  as  the  intimacy  and 
congeniality  of  the  association  increases ;  and  by  a  tremen- 
dous, logical,  converse  action,  the  congeniality  is  intensified 
and  precipitated  in  its  approximation  to  an  equilibrium  and 


454  LECTURES. 

sameness  of  character,  in  the  same  ratio  as  the  assimilation 
proceeds.  The  ratio  of  the  assimilative  procession  is  not 
therefore  arithmetical,  but  accelerative.  From  a  dissipated 
contracted  association,  the  path  to  intemperance  is  easy. 
The  youth  may  be  a  little  wary  at  first,  but  according  to  the 
laws  already  stated  he  soon  becomes  like  his  companions, 
and  growing  familiar  with  evil  he  loses  all  fear  of  it,  he  tastes 
and  is  hurried  away  into  the  treacherous  bogs  of  intemper- 
ance. 

A  son  upon  whose  plastic  and  forming  character  a  father's 
habits  and  life  are  to  a  great  degree  pictured,,  sees  his  parent 
daily  take  his  morning  dram.  The  son  grows  up  into  man- 
hood familiarized  with  the  habit  of  dram-drinking,  and  that 
habit  sanctified  by  a  father's  example.  And  though  in  a  few 
instances  the  father  may  be  able  from  fixed  moral  principles 
to  resist  the  growing  influence  of  the  habit,  yet  the  son  of 
tender  years,  with  stronger  passions,  and  less  disciplined, 
may  not,  but  may  fall  into  a  drunkard's  grave.  It  is  a  sol- 
emn truth  that  the  groundwork  of  character  is  laid  in  youth  ; 
and  if  the  character  be  defective  or  faulty,  it  will  remain  so, 
more  or  less,  forever.  To  the  defective  and  faulty  training 
of  youth  are  traceable  nearly  all  the  obliquities  of  manhood. 
And  one  reason  the  poor  drunkard  so  often  fails  when  he  at- 
tempts to  reform,  is,  his  parents  failed  to  properly  train  his 
character  in  youth,  and  in  manhood  he  has  not  the  stamina 
upon  which  to  build  a  system  of  reformation. 

In  such  a  case  who  is  responsible  ?  The  parents.  It  is  the 
parents'  duty  to  fortify  the  character  of  their  children  against 
intemperance,  by  instruction,  precept,  and  example.  To  do 
this,  parents  must  strike  at  the  root  of  the  vice  and  fortify 
their  children  against  dram-drinking.  For  parents  to  place 
before  their  children  an  irreproachable  example,  is  but  the 
beginning  of  their  work.  How  far  lost  to  all  obligation  is  the 
parent,  then,  who  drinks  his  dram,  even  if  he  does  not  drink 


INTEMPERANCE.  455 

to  drunkenness.  Father,  desist — or  call  upon  the  spirits  of 
woe  to  thicken  your  blood,  to  blockade  every  access  to  con- 
science, and  to  shroud  every  sensibility  in  your  nature  with  a 
dense,  chilly,  starless  night,  that  you  may  be  impervious  to  all 
feeling  or  remorse  ;  for  in  old  age,  the  ghost  of  your  son 
sheeted  with  fire  will  stand  by  your  bedside  and  startle  your 
last  moments  with  a  shriek,  which  will  ring  through  your  ears 
and  heart  forever — "My  murderer  !  " 

The  young  man  attends  the  social  and  brilliant  party. 
Joy  thrills  every  heart,  beams  in  every  eye,  radiates  on  every 
face.  Laughter,  the  heart's  best  and  purest  music,  rings  in 
the  festal  chamber.  A  lady  presents  the  wine-glass.  Her 
fair  hands  support  the  salver.  Her  face,  countenance,  man- 
ner, and  voice,  are  earnest,  charming  and  inviting.  Who 
could  refuse  ?  The  fashionable  bar,  the  professed  liquor- 
shop,  have  no  attractions  for  him.  He  cares  not  for  the  bev- 
erage, but  he  drinks — why  ?  His  gallantry  to  woman  seems 
to  demand  it.  It  is  a  part  of  his  homage  at  the  feet  of  what 
is  to  him,  if  he  is  a  true  man,  the  embodiment  of  all  his  ideas 
of  the  beautiful  and  good.  He  may  have  secret  resolutions 
against  it ;  he  may  have  an  ungovernable  appetite  when  it  is 
excited ;  he  may  have  promised  his  mother  and  vowed  to  his 
God  that  he  would  never  taste,  touch,  or  handle  anything 
which  had  a  possible  tendency  to  intemperance,  but  these  are 
esteemed  for  the  moment  as  nothing  when  weighed  with 
the  pleasure  of  pleasing  woman.  Such  scenes  repeated,  a 
love  for  the  stimulus  is  created,  a  habit  is  formed,  and  the 
young  man  becomes  a  confirmed  drunkard.  And  long  after 
the  poor  inebriate  is  dead,  his  thoughtless  temptress  may 
live,  and  laugh,  and  love. 

Some  authors  and  public  speakers  use  ardent  spirits  to 
stimulate  their  physical  and  intellectual  powers,  and  arouse 
their  sensibilities,  when  they  wish  to  make  a  great  effort  of 
mind  or  body,  and  produce  a  deep  and  controlling  impres- 


456  LECTURES. 

sion  upon  the  public  mind  and  heart.  It  does  produce  par- 
oxysms of  physical  and  intellectual  strength,  and  of  enkindled 
sensibilities.  But  this  superabundance  of  power,  extorted 
from  nature  by  a  stimulus  beyond  its  normal  ability,  is  in 
proportion  to  the  excess  always  followed  by  a  weakness,  a 
dulness  of  the  sensibilities,  and  a  physical  prostration.  By 
a  constant  repetition  of  such  a  process  the  healthy  tone  and 
power  of  man's  constitution,  mentally  and  physically,  are 
impaired  and  ruined  while  he  lives.  The  gain  realized  by 
such  authors  and  speakers  is  but  temporary,  and  then  the 
gain  is  chiefly  to  be  found  in  extravagance  of  feeling,  ex- 
travagance of  sentiment,  extravagance  of  metaphor,  and  ex- 
travagance of  diction,  not  in  the  accuracy,  completeness,  and 
clearness  of  written  and  oral  truth — in  fact,  with  reference 
to  these  a  loss  is  sustained  which  is  permanent.  By  per- 
sisting in  such  a  habit  they  create  a  constitutional  necessity 
for  the  stimulus  which  precipitates  them  into  the  horrors 
of  intemperance.  This  is  the  shortest  of  all  roads  to  con- 
firmed inebriacy,  and  one  upon  which  the  quickest  time  is 
made. 

Some  form  the  habit  of  drunkenness  by  drinking  the 
accursed  beverage  for  their  health.  It  has  its  place  in 
"  Materia  Medica,"  and  properly  prescribed  and  properly 
used  is  beneficial.  But  it  is  one  of  the  most  insinuating  and 
active  poisons  in  the  science  of  Toxicology.  It  is  doubtless 
the  active  and  exciting  cause  of  many  diseases  for  which  it  is 
administered  and  taken  as  a  remedy.  Anyway  it  creates  a 
more  terrible  disease  than  any  malady  it  is  taken  to  cure — a 
disease  which  creates  a  constitutional  necessity  for  its  cause 
— a  cause  and  effect  ever  aggravating  each  other  by  a  recip- 
rocal reflex  action,  till  the  victim  is  finally  and  eternally 
ruined.  Hundreds  and  thousands  of  drunkards  are  made 
just  by  the  use  of  it  in  the  beginning  as  a  remedy.  A  taste 
for  it  created,  a  habit  is  formed,  till  it  becomes  a  constitu 


INTEMPERANCE.  457 

tional  sine  ^ua  non,  and  the  victim  is  engulfed  in  the  fiery  lake 
of  intemperance,  where  all  human  agencies  are  powerless  to 
save  him. 

Some  men  when  they  become  unhappy — be  the  cause 
what  it  may,  domestic,  social,  financial,  or  religious,  family 
jars,  disappointed  hopes,  ruined  reputation,  loss  of  property, 
remorse  of  conscience  or  conscious  reprobacy — endeavor  to 
forget  their  woes  and  lose  themselves  in  the  exhilarating 
effects  and  the  sweet  oblivion  of  the  wine-cup  and  its  long 
train  of  fiery  beverages.  In  place  of  trying  to  remedy  the 
evil,  they  endeavor  to  lull  it  to  sleep  by  intoxication  in  the 
arms  of  unconsciousness — an  unconsciousness  which  from  its 
nature  can  be  but  temporary,  and  which  will  certainly  be 
succeeded  by  a  misery  but  complicated  and  augmented  from 
the  unfortunate  means  used  to  alleviate  its  pungency.  Here 
many  commence,  and  plunging  headlong  into  depths  ever 
deepening,  wind  up  their  career  where  incessant  and  unmiti- 
gated misery,  proportioned  to  their  highest  capabilities  for 
suffering,  is  their  eternal  destiny. 

Some  men  commence  the  habit  of  drinking  ardent  spirits 
for  their  pleasurable  effects.  The  sensation  produced  is  of 
the  most  peculiar  and  agreeable  kind.  A  strange  kind  of 
pleasure  trembles  along  the  excited  nerves,  and  dances  in 
the  reeling  brain.  Every  chord  of  sensation  is  touched  with 
an  influence  which  thrills  it,  and  an  exquisite  delight  stands 
tiptoe  upon  every  quivering  string.  But  these  pleasurable 
sensations  are  but  the  fitful  smiles  upon  the  dark  brow  of 
hate  in  the  moment  of  the  opportunity  of  its  revenge.  They 
are  but  the  pencillings  of  a  few  stray  beams  of  sickly  light 
upon  a  background  of  horror.  They  are  but  the  lightning's 
feeblest  glimmerings  upon  the  face  of  the  storm  cloud,  which 
is  rende.ed  but  the  blacker  for  their  occasional  flash.  They 
are  but  the  ignes  fatui  which  allure  into  the  smothering 
swamp.     They  are   but   the   precursors  of  coming  misery 


458  LECTURES. 

travelling  right  upon  their  heels,  which  will  tramp  upon  the 
heart-strings  with  feet  of  blistering  fire. 

I  have  given  you  a  few  illustrations  of  Intemperance  in  its 
beginnings,  recognizing  the  inevitable  tendency  of  its  nature 
to  progress  to  ampler  and  more  criminal  developments.  In 
this  progression  and  development  a  philosophy  is  involved — 
Intemperance  is  an  insidious  and  subtle  thing.  It  insinuates 
itself  so  gradually  and  slowly  into  the  habits  of  men,  corrupt- 
ing their  principles,  detracting  from  all  that  is  good  in  human 
nature,  deadening  and  hardening  the  moral  sensibilities,  less- 
ening the  power  of  moral  resistance,  enlisting  the  passions 
in  its  favor,  and  habituating  the  physical  system  to  its  strange 
effects — implanting  a  necessity  for  its  stimulus  in  the  appe- 
tites, till  it  brings  its  victim  completely  within  the  circumfer- 
ence of  its  influence  and  under  the  hand  of  its  power.  It 
creates  an  unnatural  and  inordinate  desire  for  the  stimulus  of 
intoxicating  beverages.  The  organic  functions  of  men  accus- 
tomed to  be  stimulated  to  action  are  torpid  without  it  ;  and 
according  to  a  law  of  nature  they  importunately  and  impera- 
tively demand  their  habitual  excitement  or  they  will  not  act 
at  all.  It  creates  a  raging,  consuming  thirst,  which  nothing 
can  quench.  Even  the  desired  beverage  only  kindles  the  in- 
tensity of  the  desire.  Every  function  of  their  body  calls  for 
drink — they  drink,  yet  ever  thirst  for  more. 

In  the  beginning  it  so  quietly  weaves  about  its  victims  a 
web  whose  fibres  are  so  frail  and  yielding,  it  excites  no 
alarm.  "  I  become  a  drunkard  ?  preposterous  !  I  never 
take  a  dram  because  I  love  it,  no,  not  I."  Yet  here  the 
career  of  every  drunkard  opens.  The  difficulty  is  to  make 
men  feel  they  are  as  liable  to  fall  as  other  men. 

"  O  for  some  power  the  gift  to  gie  us 
To  see  ourselves  as  others  see  us." 

But  the  net  strengthens.     With  every  repeated  dram  the 


INTEMPERANCE.  459 

fibres  lengthen  and  link  out,  till  before  the  man  is  aware  of 
it  he  is  bound  hand  and  foot  in  chains  of  habit  as  inseverable 
as  links  of  adamant.  The  habit  once  formed  the  mind  be- 
comes so  besotted  as  actually  to  tax  its  energies  with  the  in- 
vention of  arguments  and  apologies  for  the  indulgence  of  the 
appetite  :  "  My  health  is  so  feeble — my  constitution  needs  a 
stimulus — my  occupation  exposes  me  to  the  inclemency  of 
the  weather — I  necessarily  lose  so  much  sleep — I  am  so 
liable  to  take  cold — the  atmosphere  is  so  damp  and  the 
pavements  and  ground  so  wet."  As  a  remedy  when  sick,  as 
a  preventive  when  well,  wet  or  dry,  cold  or  hot,  sad  or  joy- 
ful, in  every  condition  and  circumstance  in  life,  however  in- 
consistent or  contradictory,  he  finds  a  reason  for  the  intoxi- 
cating draught. 

The  inchoative  steps  of  drunkenness  are  found,  in  the 
illustrations  before  adduced,  in  dram-drinking.  The  first 
dram  is  inceptive  drunkenness.  From  nature  of  the  bever- 
age, and  the  nature  of  the  man  who  takes  it  is  the  crisis  of 
the  drunkard's  life.  The  first  little  dram  is  the  first  little 
breeze  which  whiffles  over  the  plain,  the  forerunner  playing 
on  the  outposts  of  the  simoon  which  is  following  with  the 
roar  of  a  thousand  winged  demons,  lifting  in  its  poisonous 
coils  the  burning  sands  of  Death's  Sahara.  The  first  dram  is 
the  easy  pathway  meandering  awhile  through  flowery  mead- 
ows and  mossy  lanes,  then  sinuously  ascending  the  bleak 
mountain  of  Intemperance,  that  Limbus-land  lying  on  the 
confines  of  hell,  overhanging  eternal  horrors,  pitchy  darkness 
and  fiery  gorges,  into  which  poor  drunkards  stumble  to  rise 
no  more.  Yet  thousands  are  travelling  this  road.  Look  at 
the  vast  host  of  merry  tipplers,  but  commencing  their  jour- 
ney. Now,  look  away  to  those  dim  mountain  spurs  and  dis- 
mal peaks,  and  see  the  stream*  of  bloated  wretches  winding 
amid  the  black  and  desolate  rocks,  till  disappearing  on  the 
other  side  they  descend  rapidly  to  the  burning  lake. 


460  LECTURES. 

True,  hundreds  are  reeling  over  precipitous  brinks,  and  are 
hurled  down  awful  slopes  and  vertical  cliffs  into  gaping 
abysms  through  which  fiery  rivers  run  and  empty  into  the 
sulphurous  lake  beyond.  But  the  others  regard  it  not,  but 
stupidly  stagger  along  to  a  similar  fate.  In  this  dread  land 
the  ravens  of  hell  build  their  nests  and  hatch  their  hideous 
progeny,  and  shave  the  murky  gloom  with  their  sombre  wings, 
and  fill  the  drowsy  air  with  their  lugubrious  croakings.  In 
this  dread  land,  burning  serpents  sired  by  the  serpent  of  the 
still,  crawl,  and  hiss,  and  spurt  their  venom.  In  this  dread 
land,  phantoms  ride  on  every  breeze,  and  goblins  crouch  on 
every  rock,  and  spectres  dance  on  every  hill,  and  wan  and 
dusky  ghosts  pursued  by  demons  armed  with  blistering 
scourges,  and  satyrs  wielding  thongs  of  forked  flames,  flit  and 
scream  till  every  black  plume  in  horror's  crest  stands  erect 
and  quivering  in  the  jarring  air  freighted  its  every  breath 
with  their  shrieking  woe. 

Oh,  this  dread  land  is  the  land  of  intemperance  of  which 
Bacchus  is  the  vicegerent  governor,  and  Satan  is  the  king — 
and  the  first  dram  is  the  wicket  gate,  and  dram-drinking  the 
road  to  it.  Enter  not  the  gate  at  the  head  of  the  way — shun 
the  first  dram — make  that  the  rule  of  your  life  and  you  are 
safe  forever.  The  regular  dram-drinker  sooner  or  later 
becomes  a  drunkard.  This  is  the  rule — if  he  does  not,  it 
is  the  exception.  Touch  it  not,  taste  it  not,  handle  it  not, 
lly  from  it.  Young  man,  the  glass  you  hold  in  your  hand  is 
the  chalice  of  death.  In  the  name  of  God,  in  the  name  of 
heaven,  in  the  name  of  your  gray-haired  mother  and  aged 
sire,  for  the  sake  of  yourself,  body,  soul,  and  mind,  lift  it  not 
to  your  lips  nor  drink  its  accursed  contents.  The  glass  in 
your  hand  is  the  chalice  of  death — demons  laugh  in  every 
sparkling  bead,  and  dance  in  every  drop.  Oh,  dash  it  down  i 
Dash  it  down  !  ! 

This  is  the  only  ground  of  safety.     There  is  a  platform 


INTEMPERANCE.  46 1 

upon  which  the  enemy  never  ventured ;  a  citadel  he  never 
attacked  ;  an  atmosphere  whose  healthy  breezes  never  wafted 
the  sickening  fumes  of  inebriation  ;  a  community  never  dis- 
graced by  a  drunkard's  swagger,  or  a  liquor  vender's  curse. 
Would  you  know  where?  It  is  in  the  beautiful  land  of 
Temperance,  where  the  healthful  balm  tree  waves  its  living 
foliage,  where  the  tree  of  life  drops  full  and  ripe  the  luscious 
fruit  of  immortality.  In  that  happy  land  fountains  limpid 
and  pure  as  heaven  are  bursting  up  from  every  sequestered 
glen  and  mountain  foot.  Bright  rivers  rushing  like  liquid  dia- 
monds, embanked  in  emerald,  sweep  throughout  its  extended 
landscapes ;  and  on  both  sides  of  the  river,  from  source  to 
mouth,  from  the  parent  spring  till  they  pour  their  pellucid 
waters  into  the  unruffled  sea  of  heaven,  stand  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  Temperance,  who  quaff  as  their  most  delicious 
beverage  the  sweet  and  cooling  draught,  then  looking  up  to 
God  work  out  a  destiny  little  less  than  Divine. 

Let  us  examine  the  evils  of  Intemperance.  //  destroys 
man. 

Intemperance  destroys  his  body.  Man's  body  is  the  most 
complete  chemical  compound  in  existence.  It  is  the  magnifi- 
cent and  symmetric  aggregation  of  material  elements,  embod- 
ied in  the  most  intricate  and  complicate  of  all  organisms.  In 
its  parts,  its  structure,  its  form,  and  its  various  phenomena,  it 
is  the  king  of  the  mammals,  the  highest  order  of  all  animated 
and  organized  being.  It  is  indeed  heaven's  material  master* 
piece.  God  has  adapted  all  surrounding  nature  to  develop,, 
sustain,  and  prolong,  its  organized  existence.  Nature  is  a  grand 
laboratory  where  the  pabulum  for  the  sustentation  of  its  life 
is  prepared — and  in  which,  and  for  this  purpose,  the  mighty 
kingdoms  of  animals,  vegetables,  and  minerals,  together  with 
all  elements,  substances,  and  gases  pour  their  contributions. 

To  promote  the  healthy  action  of  the  organs  and  functions 
of  the  body,  nature  furnishes  the  necessary  stimuli.     On  the 


462  LECTURES. 

healthy  and  uniform  action  of  these  organs  and  functions,  the 
life  of  the  body  depends.  Impair  their  action,  and  disturb  the 
equilibrium  of  the  physical  constitution,  by  the  introduction 
of  an  artificial  stimulus,  and  the  beauty  of  the  body  is  marred, 
and  it  hastens  to  a  premature  decay.  Ardent  spirit  is  the 
greatest  of  all  stimuli.  The  stimulating  properties  of  healthy 
cereals  and  fruits,  proportioned  by  nature  to  the  strength, 
tone,  and  necessities  of  the  organic  functions,  are  chemically 
separated  from  all  nutritious  and  conservative  elements  by 
distillation,  and  concreted  into  a  fiery  liquid  called  alcohol — 
from  forty-five  to  fifty  per  cent,  of  which  is  contained  in  the 
various  kinds  of  brandy,  rum,  gin,  and  whiskey. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  active  and  destructive  of  poisons.  It 
insinuates  itself  into  the  whole  physical  organism — affecting 
every  nerve,  every  muscle,  every  bone — the  brain,  the  heart, 
the  liver,  the  viscera,  the  fluids,  destroying  their  vitality  by 
stimulating  them  too  powerfully.  From  its  nature  it  strikes 
right  at  the  life  of  every  function.  It  runs  the  machine  so 
rapidly  that  the  slow  process  of  physical  reproduction  is  im- 
possible j  and  the  premature  death  of  the  body  is  inevitable — 
and  that  death  fraught  with  unspeakable  horror. 

All  respectable  physicians  and  chemists  pronounce  ardent 
spirits  poisonous  and  detrimental  to  life.  "  Intemperance," 
says  Addison,  is  the  "  Prime  Minister  ■  of  "  Death,  the 
king  of  Terrors."  It  produces  disease  ;  but  it  does  more — 
it  renders  its  victims  subject  to  every  endemic  and  epidemic. 
Statistical  tables  reveal  some  startling  facts.  There  are  one 
million  drunkards  in  these  United  States.  One  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  of  these  die  annually.  That  is  one  person 
every  five  minutes.  What  a  vast  host  to  be  driven  annually 
from  the  land  of  churches  to  perdition,  for  one  cause.  They 
die  prematurely ;  they  die  in  the  prime  of  life ;  they  die  of 
Intemperance  ;  and  go  to  eternity  self-murderers,  and  no  self 
murderer  hath  eternal  life. 


INTEMPERANCE.  463 

Did  you  ever  see  a  drunkard  die  ?  I  knew  one  who  died 
upon  his  chair.  I  knew  one  who  froze  to  death  with  his 
bottle  by  his  side.  I  knew  one  who  was  drowned.  They 
die  on  the  pavement,  they  die  in  the  gutter,  they  die  on  their 
horses,  they  die  along  the  roadside,  they  die  in  the  quag- 
mire, they  die  away  from  home,  and  when  they  die  at  home 
their  friends  often  wish  they  had  died  away.  They  die  un- 
conscious, they  die  asleep,  they  die  weeping,  they  die  groan- 
ing, they  die  screaming,  they  die  raving,  they  die  cursing. 
But  oh  !  when  with  Delirium  Tremens  he  dies,  the  scene  is 
one  of  horror.  No  painter  can  paint  the  terrors  of  that 
hour.  If  he  attempt  it,  however,  he  must  have  background 
of  awful  shades.  If  he  pencils  a  few  arrowed  gleams  of  red 
lightning  upon  the  margin,  it  will  be  an  improvement. 
Then  every  character  he  limns  upon  the  canvas  must  have 
a  fiendish,  fiery  shape.  And  every  shape  must  be  girted 
with  a  band  of  twisted  and  writhing  serpents.  The  painting 
must  be  so  natural  that  you  can  see  a  sting  in  every  tail,  and 
a  crooked  fang  in  every  gaping  mouth.  If  he  paint  a  scaly 
dragon  with  eyes  of  rolling  fire,  and  nostrils  of  wheezing 
flame,  with  enormous  wings  of  laminated  bone  fringed  with 
jagged  barbs  tipped  with  venom,  with  a  monstrous  tail  of 
hideous  windings — and  in  whose  sulphurous  wake  an  army 
of  hobgoblins  hover — the  picture  is  but  the  truer.  Then 
the  painter  must  have  power  to  give  his  characters  life,  and 
fling  them  from  the  canvas  all  over  the  room — his  fiends 
hanging  upon  the  walls,  dropping  from  the  ceilings,  and 
dancing  in  air — his  serpents  crawling  upon  the  floor  and 
horridly  hissing — and  his  dragon  with  its  fearful  train  hang- 
ing over  the  dying  drunkard's  pillow.  Drunkards  die,  but 
who  desires  to  be  the  witness?  We  might  fall  into  the 
blushing  funeral  train,  and  follow  him  to  his  burial ;  and 
stand  around  his  grave  ;  and  there  hear  the  broken-hearted 


464  LECTURES. 

widow  weep,  and  the  ragged  children  cry — but  let  us  now 
turn  away,  and  forget  him  if  we  can. 

Intemperance  destroys  his  mind.  It  injures  and  destroys 
the  powers  of  the  mind,  because  it  injures  and  destroys  the 
powers  of  the  body  which  are  the  organs  of  the  mind,  and 
in  virtue  of  its  incarnation  the  instrument  of  its  manifesta- 
tion. It  injures  and  destroys  the  powers  of  the  mind,  be- 
cause of  the  intimate  and  sympathetic  relations  between  the 
incarnated  mind  and  the  powers  of  the  body  ;  injury  to  the 
body  is  per  se  injury  to  the  mind.  Mind  is  a  generic  word, 
and  includes  intellect,  sensibilities,  and  will.  It  injures  and 
destroys  the  powers  of  the  intellect.  It  manacles  every 
faculty,  pollutes  the  fountains  of  thought,  overthrows  the 
altars  of  wisdom,  extinguishes  the  fires  of  aspiration,  de- 
thrones the  reason,  corrupts  the  judgment,  destroys  the 
memory,  infuriates  the  imagination,  and  man  stalks  forth  a 
maniac.  Reliable  computists  say  that  of  nine-tenths  of  the 
insane  in  our  asylums  their  insanity  was  caused  by  intemper- 
ance.    Does  it  produce  insanity  ? 

Look  at  the  haggard,  marred,  and  shameless  drunkard — ■ 
is  he  sane  ?  Sane  men  in  that  condition  would  hide  from 
the  public  eye,  and  hide  forever.  Hear  him  in  his  ravings — ■ 
as  he  laughs,  and  sings,  and  curses,  and  oh,  tell  me  is  he 
sane  ?  See  him  lift  the  rugged  club  or  cursed  whip,  and  la- 
cerate and  bruise  the  frail  and  tender  back  of  her  whom  he 
swore  to  love  and  protect,  and  who  is  his  noblest,  his  best, 
his  truest  earthly  friend,  and  is  he  sane  f  See  him  steal  the 
earnings  wrung  from  the  nerves  of  his  weeping  wife  to  buy 
the  accursed  beverage,  and  turn  his  naked  children  out  to 
beg  or  die — and  is  he  sane  ?  He  is  mad — mania  a  potu, 
madness  from  drinking.  He  is  miserably  and  wretchedly 
mad — a  self-made  madness  which  can  claim  no  exemption 
from  law  or  penalty — a  madness  which  takes  hold  upon  the 
pit.     Poor  man  !  better  for  him  if  he  had  not  been  born. 


INTEMPERANCE.  465 

It  works  fearful  ruin  in  the  field  of  the  sensibilities.  It 
subverts  men's  propensities,  destroys  their  individual  normal 
powers,  and  chains  them  to  the  wheels  of  appetite.  The  de- 
sire for  knowledge,  esteem,  and  happiness,  in  fact  all  the 
higher  propensities  it  destroys  entirely.  It  corrupts  the 
affections.  In  its  last  stages  it  utterly  destroys  the  superior 
class  of  the  affections — parental,  filial,  conjugal,  fraternal, 
social,  theistical ;  and  engenders  and  develops  their  oppo- 
sites.  It  disorganizes  the  whole  system  of  the  sensibilities, 
and  arrays  them  in  antagonism  to  each  other,  till  man's 
mind  is  a  Pandemonium  of  conflicting  powers,  which  finally 
destroy  each  other  and  leave  a  desolated  waste  inhabited 
only  by  coarse  passions,  detestable  hates,  frightful  monsters, 
and  a  few  flitting  shapes  and  spectral  shades  which  dolefully 
howl  among  the  ruins.  It  impairs  the  power  of  the  will — 
until  finally  that  power  is  destroyed  and  the  man  cannot  will 
to  reform.  His  case  is  then  utterly  hopeless,  for  all  schemes 
of  reformation  must  begin  in  the  will.  How  often  does  the 
will  of  the  drunkard  feebly  assent  to  a  reformation,  but 
weakened  by  intemperance,  his  will  succumbs  to  appetite 
in  the  first  following  temptation.  Let  every  dram-drinker 
and  drunkard  turn  back  while  they  can  do  it. 

Intemperance  damns  the  soul.  This  is  a  feature  of  the 
subject  not  usually  discussed  in  Temperance  lectures ;  and 
was  not  the  lecture  of  this  hour  intended  to  be  a  grave  ex- 
position of  the  gravest  of  subjects,  its  discussion  would  not 
be  attempted  now.  The  presentation  of  such  a  feature  as  a 
motive  of  reform  is  appropriate  now,  because  the  speaker  is 
a  minister  ;  because  this  is  God's  temple ;  because  the  sub- 
ject is  a  moral  one  ;  because  it  is  a  part  of  the  Gospel ;  be- 
cause such  is  the  fact—"  Drunkards  shall  "  not  "  inherit  the 
kingdom  of  God,"  says  the  Bible.  I  believe  that  the  cause 
of  Temperance  has  been  weakened  and  shorn  of  its  strength 
in  this  country  by  Temperance  meetings  being  converted 
20* 


4^6  LECTURES. 

into  a  means  of  coarse  and  vulgar  entertainment ;  which  in 
consideration  of  the  immense  importance  of  the  questions 
involved — which  questions  comprehend  principles  of  vital, 
social,  and  eternal  reform,  embracing  in  the  wide  field  of 
their  discussion  the  ruin  and  misery  of  thousands  here  and 
hereafter — have  brought  them  under  the  censure  of  the  in- 
telligent and  refined.  Surely  it  would  be  as  appropriate  to 
jest  on  the  field  of  battle  at  the  expense  of  the  dying  and  the 
dead,  as  to  make  the  chief  attractions  of  a  meeting,  organ- 
ized for  the  reformation  of  poor  drunkards,  and  to  the  exer- 
cises of  which  a  thousand  broken-hearted  wives  and  hungry 
children  look  with  awful  interest,  consist  in  low  jests  at  the 
expense  of  the  erring  and  suffering. 

But  to  return  to  the  proposition  :  Intemperance  involves 
the  eternal  loss  of  the  soul.  It  sends  the  soul  to  hell  be- 
cause it  vitiates  the  affections,  sears  and  silences  the  con- 
science, and  corrupts  the  character.  Its  natural  tendency  is 
to  produce  sin.  Men  are  led  by  it  to  commit  sins  which 
they  scorn  to  do  when  they  are  not  under  its  influence. 
Who  are  the  swearers  ?  Who  are  the  incendiaries  ?  Who 
are  the  robbers  ?  Who  are  the  murderers  ?  Who  are  the 
criminals  and  inmates  of  our  jails  and  penitentiaries  ?  Had 
I  time  to  exhibit  the  record,  I  would  show  you  that  again 
nine-tenths  of  them  are  drunkards.  It  drowns  the  soul  in 
perdition.     //  destroys  the  man,  body,  mind,  and  soul. 

But  notwithstanding,  I  fear  drunkenness  is  on  the  increase. 
Go  to  the  stupendous  temple  of  Bacchus.  Look  at  its  lofty 
columns  of  parched  and  arid  skulls.  Behold  its  infernal 
altars  drenched  with  human  blood.  Cast  your  eyes  athwart 
its  long  and  gloomy  halls,  where  demons  hold  their  midnight 
revelry,  and  reeking  bacchanalians  whirl  in  the  drunken 
dance  to  the  licentious  strains  of  Terpsichore's  maddened 
harp.  Go  and  see  its  dark,  dismal  vaults  and  dungeons 
where  lost  spirits  weep.     Here  Intemperance  sits  crowned 


INTEMPERANCE.  467 

and  sceptred  on  a  black  and  terrible  throne.  Thousands 
crowd  to  worship  at  his  shrine,  and  sacrifice  upon  his  altars. 
Sacrifice  what  ?  The  infatuated  debauchee  lays  upon  that 
altar  his  character,  probably  the  only  patrimony  bequeathed 
him  by  his  sainted  father — that  character  woven  in  its  struc- 
ture and  frame  by  a  mother's  counsels,  example,  and  prayers 
— that  character  he  ought  to  leave  untarnished  as  a  rich 
legacy  to  his  children.  His  health  and  life,  precious  to  him- 
self and  family,  are  also  freely  offered  up.  His  undying  soul, 
bought  by  the  precious  blood  of  an  incarnated  God,  he  sur- 
renders with  an  eagerness  which  savors  of  madness.  It  is 
here  the  dram-drinker  seeks  a  panacea  for  his  woes.  It  is 
here  he  flies  for  happiness  when  sorrow  comes.  It  is  here 
the  confirmed  inebriate  flies  to  worship  because  he  loves  it. 
Was  there  ever  a  love  demanded  more  sacrifices,  and  a  love 
for  which  more  are  made  ? 

It  is  also  a  communicative  evil.  Nations  with  their  every 
interest  imperilled  have  been  crushed  and  overthrown  be- 
cause of  the  drunken  imbecility  of  their  rulers.  Armies  in 
battle,  upon  the  issue  of  which  hung  the  fate  of  a  nation,  have 
been  discomfited  and  slain,  and  extended  territories  of  coun- 
try have  been  surrendered  to  the  ravages  of  an  aggressive 
foe,  through  the  inebriation  of  military  officers.  A  nation 
weeps  when  drunkenness  sits  in  high  places. 

See  the  temperance  home.  How  lovely !  Prosperity, 
plenty,  harmony,  and  love,  sweet  angels  with  bright  wings, 
preside  at  their  family  board.  Spirits  of  heaven  when  pass- 
ing up  and  down  through  the  earth  often  turn  in  as  they  did 
of  old  when  they  came  to  Abraham's  tent.  But  let  Intem- 
perance look  that  way— flowers  wither,  angels  depart,  the 
old  family  altar  crumbles,  luxuries  leave,  necessities  follow, 
health  and  happiness  flee,  tattered  penury  comes,  hollow- 
eyed  and  hollow-hearted  famine  comes,  disease  and  misery 
come.     The  drunkard    not    only  suffers,   but  others  suffer. 


468  LECTURES. 

He  is  not  disgraced,  but  he  disgraces  others.  Let  the  son 
die  in  battle,  and  the  mother  and  sister  are  proud.  Let  him 
fall  a  victim  to  intemperance,  and  both  are  ashamed. 

The  young  man  loves  some  noble  girl.  He  wooes,  he 
pledges  eternal  fidelity,  he  calls  heaven  and  earth  to  witness 
his  truth.  His  sincerity  is  believed,  his  honor  is  trusted,  his 
love  is  returned  ;  and  the  confiding  woman  bids  farewell  to 
father,  mother,  home,  to  all  the  world  besides  ;  risks  his  for- 
tune, embraces  his  destiny,  gives  her  hand  and  heart,  gives 
her  all.  For  the  future  he  is  her  only  hope,  her  only  protec- 
tion. If  he  fails,  she  is  ruined.  He  leads  her  blushing  to 
the  altar,  and  that  most  solemn  of  all  obligations  is  mutually 
administered,  and  they  are  one  in  name,  one  in  life,  one  in 
interest,  by  all  law,  human  and  divine.  How  sweet  their  first 
home  !  Time  flies  rapidly,  yet  every  moment  is  freighted  with 
a  blessing  for  them.  How  the  heart  of  the  young  bride 
throbs  with  joy,  sending  blushes  and  happiness  to  her  bright 
cheeks,  as  she  hears  a  familiar  step  in  the  dewy  evening 
along  the  garden  walk,  or  up  the  avenue,  and  upon  the 
threshold  of  her  happy  home.  Here  we  bid  them  farewell 
for  a  while. 

Years  roll  on.  He  has  learned  to  love  his  dram,  and 
from  one  step  to  another  he  has  become  a  confirmed  drunk- 
ard. We  will  pass  over  their  gradual  decline  from  lux- 
ury to  want,  and  present  ourselves  on  some  cold  winter 
night  at  the  same  cottage.  It  is  midnight.  We  have  no 
gate  to  open,  no  gravel  walks  to  tread — these  are  gone  long 
ago.  The  winter  wind  sighs  mournfully  in  the  neighboring 
mountains  and  comes  down  upon  us  in  squalls  laden  with 
snow  and  ice,  and  groans  around  the  corners,  and  whistles 
through  the  crevices  of  what  is  now  a  miserable  hovel. 

Let  us  look  through  a  yawning  scissure.  A  few  smouldering 
coals  are  upon  the  hearth,  which,  ever  stirred,  cast  but  a  dull 
and  sullen  light  about  the  room.     The  wife  is  attenuated, 


INTEMPERANCE.  4^9 

her  face  is  pale,  her  eyes  hollow  with  grief  and  famine,  her 
garments  thin  and  tattered.  She  starts  and  listens  at  every 
gust.  Soon  a  heavy  tramp  and  muttered  curse  are  heard 
without;  she  takes  the  prop  from  the  door  and  lets  the 
drunken  fiend  in.  Now  mingled  oaths  and  smothered 
shrieks  greet  the  ear— sick  in  heart  we  turn  away  and  leave 
a  feeble  frame,  beaten  and  bruised,  yet  hovering  over  her 
starving  babes  to  shield  them  with  her  own  poor  body  from 
a  father's  blows. 

But  the  evils  of  Intemperance  stop  not  here.  The  drunk- 
ard's children  inherit  his  intellectual  and  physical  imperfec- 
tions, created  by  the  habitual  use  of  the  fiery  draught,  and 
often  the  constitutional  tastes  and  tendencies  to  intemper- 
ance. They -also  inherit  the  stigma  "a  drunkards  child:' 
It  is  estimated  that  the  orphans  produced  by  Intemper- 
ance, if  standing  hand  in  hand,  would  reach  around  this 
earth  three  times— seventy-five  thousand  miles.  Stretch  out 
this  long  line  of  woe,  and  the  world  would  be  belted  with 
a  wail  almost  sufficient  to  melt  the  rocks  and  awake  the 

dead. 

You  all  remember  the  fabulous  monster,  the  Hydra, 
which  dwelt  in  the  lake  or  marsh  of  Lerna,  in  Peloponnesus, 
which  had  a  multitude  of  heads,  which  spread  terror  and 
destruction  through  the  land.  It  was  assaulted  many 
times,  yet  never  conquered,  for  as  quickly  as  one  head  was 
severed  another  would  immediately  succeed  unless  the 
wound  was  cauterized.  Hercules  finally  killed  the  mon- 
strous serpent  by  applying  firebrands  to  the  wounded  necks 
as  he  cut  off  the  heads.  Intemperance  is  a  serpent  of  more 
fearful  form  and  power  ;  though  it  may  wear  at  times  an 
epidermis  of  glittering  beauty,  it  is  a  serpent  still— a  serpent 
of  many  a  foul  and  snaky  coil.  Its  heads  are  multiplied— 
so  that  there  is  a  crowned  head  with  poisonous  fangs,  and 
flashing  eyes,  and  forked  tongue,  and  deadly  breath  for  every 


470  LECTURES. 

land.  Its  huge  form  bathes  in  every  sea,  and  its  heads  pro- 
trude on  every  shore. 

Often  has  he  been  attacked  by  sainted  Philanthropists  of 
earth  and  as  often  have  they  failed,  for  when  their  glittering 
sabres  descended  and  a  head  bit  the  dust — marvellous  power 
of  reproduction  ! — another  with  twofold  fury  reared  its  dread- 
ful crest,  and  bid  defiance  to  all  human  effort.  Such  a  mon- 
ster is  at  our  very  doors,  and  spits  his  foul  slime  upon  the 
purity  of  our  family  altars  and  the  escutcheons  of  our  reli- 
gion, and  threatens  to  crash  in  his  deathly  coils  the  institu- 
tions of  our  country. 

Is  there  no  remedy  ?  There  is  only  one  available  human 
remedy  :  and  that  is  an  organized  body  backed  by  the  power 
of  God,  and  fighting  upon  the  principles  of  Total  Abstinence. 
The  prohibition  of  wine  and  cider,  and  drinks  which  can 
possibly  awaken  the  appetite  for  stronger  and  more  danger- 
ous beverages,  is  the  cauterizing  process  which  prevents,  and 
which  only  can  prevent,  the  reproduction  of  the  heads  of  the 
monster,  and  result  in  his  death.  The  organization  I  repre- 
sent embodies  all  the  elements  of  a  final  success ;  and  if  it 
will  but  do  its  duty,  it  will  by  and  by  rear  its  strongholds 
upon  the  ruined  ramparts  of  fortressed  Intemperance,  and 
surrounded  by  a  wilderness  of  ghastly  decapitated  heads, 
place  its  foot  upon  the  mutilated  body  of  the  beast,  and 
wave  its  banner  of  blue,  white,  and  red,  amid  the  orchestral 
thunders  of  angelic  applause. 

I  have  presented  you  some  of  the  evils  of  Intemperance. 
But  who  is  the  cause?  The  vender  of  ardent  spirits.  It  is 
no  use  for  the  gray-haired  mother  to  kneel,  hold  up  her 
hands,  and  pray  for  the  reformation  of  a  fallen  son  ;  or  the 
broken-hearted  wife  and  trembling  children  to  plead  and  cry 
with  a  drunken  husband  and  father,  so  long  as  the  liquor- 
seller,  against  all  entreaties  and  requests,  will  sell  them  the 
fiery  beverage,  and  hold  out  his   sparkling  decanters,  and 


INTEMPERANCE.  47 1 

even  follow  them  to  the  very  doors  of  their  homes,  and 
stimulate  them  to  break  any  vow  that  may  have  been  extorted 
from  them — and  all  for  what  ?  It  certainly  seems  that  foi 
paltry  gold  he  would  stand  amid  the  shouts  of  hell,  upon  the 
widow's  crushed  and  bleeding  heart,  and  wave  the  banner 
of  death  over  the  orphan's  home. 

The  selling  of  ardent  spirits  is  disreputable.  I  need  no 
further  witness  than  the  seller  himself.  Stand  by  him  on  the 
street  and  point  out  the  first  drunkard  you  see — with  swollen 
eyes,  his  bloated  face,  his  crushed  hat,  his  ragged  coat,  if 
coat  he  has  any,  reeling  and  muttering,  while  parotid,  sub- 
maxillary, and  sublingual  glands  pour  out  their  viscid  fluid 
— running  from  the  mouth,  and  foully  adhering  to  and  drip- 
ping from  the  unkempt  beard — and  say,  ''Sir,  there  is  your 
work,  and  you  have  done  it  well ; "  and  shame  will  hang  out 
its  ruddy  livery  upon  his  face,  or  growing  angry  he  will  dis- 
own his  work,  and  declare  you  mean  to  insult  him.  No 
other  workman  blushes  at  a  well-done  job.  He  knows  that 
it  is  disreputable. 

It  is  dishonest.  The  vender  of  ardent  spirits  violates  the 
principle  of  equality  in  merchandise  :  he  does  not  return  an 
equivalent  value  for  what  he  receives.  He  knows  that  he 
sells  what  is  of  no  benefit  to  the  drunkard  or  his  family,  but 
that  which  is  actually  injurious  to  them.  If  what  he  sells  is 
of  no  benefit,  it  is  worth  nothing  ;  if  it  is  actually  injurious  it 
is  worth  less  than  nothing,  yet  he  receives  something.  Were 
he  to  sell  a  horse  on  the  same  principle,  the  world  would  say 
he  was  dishonest.  Again,  the  liquor-vender  sells  that  to  his 
customer  which  he  knows  will  incapacitate  his  customer  for 
making  further  purchases.  Yet  in  that  state  he  will  trade 
with  him  still,  knowing  that  if  his  customer  were  sober  he 
would  not  buy  so  largely.  Is  not  this  dishonest  ?  Let  any 
other  man  trade  with  the  drunkard  in  such  a  state  as  this, 
and  sell  him  anything  else  than  that  which  made  him  drunk, 


472  LECTURES. 

and  he  would  instantly  be  branded  as  a  villain.  Let  the 
merchant  do  it  if  he  dare. 

It  is  inhuman.  The  liquor-seller  is  the  instrument  of  the 
entailment  of  all  the  evils  upon  mankind  whose  nature  and 
enumeration  have  constituted  a  large  portion  of  this  lecture. 
But  he  has  his  reasons — yes,  he  is  as  full  of  apologies  as  the 
Sphinx  of  riddles.  He  says  if  he  does  not  sell  the  infernal 
poison  some  one  else  will.  I  have  good  reason  to  believe  a 
band  of  men  have  conspired  against  the  life  of  my  neighbor, 
and  that  from  circumstances  and  opportunities  they  will  cer- 
tainly kill  him,  therefore  I  go  and  kill  him  myself.  Is  not 
this  the  very  logic  of  humanity  ? 

He  says  that  he  does  not  force  men  to  buy — they  buy  of 
him  willingly.  If  my  neighbor  is  willing,  and  asks  me  to  burn 
his  house,  dishonor  his  family,  and  murder  him,  am  I  justi- 
fiable in  doing  them  ?  If  I  ask  the  druggist  to  sell  me  some 
arsenic  that  I  might  destroy  my  life,  dare  he  do  it  ?  But  he 
says  it  is  lawful.  It  was  once  lawful  to  burn  heretics  and 
witches,  but  was  it  right  ?  Suppose  it  is  lawful,  is  it  human  ? 
It  might  have  been  lawful  for  Shylock  to  cut  the  pound  of 
flesh  from  the  breast  of  Antonio,  but  was  it  human  ? — was  it 
kind? 

Ah !  it  is  for  money.  He  kills  for  money — so  does  the 
assassin.  He  is  a  murderer.  He  will  sell  his  beverages,  be 
the  consequences  what  they  may.  The  vender  of  ardent 
spirits  is  professionally  an  injurer  of  mankind — this  is  his 
occupation.  He  is  a  curse  to  society,  a  curse  to  our  fami- 
lies, a  curse  to  our  children.  His  death  would  be  a  blessing, 
and  he  knows  it.  That  he  should  be  tolerated  anywhere  is 
a  mystery  to  me.  Yet  I  am  sorry  for  him.  He  is  injuring 
himself,  and  will  havTe  a  fearful  account  to  render.  "  Woe 
unto  him  that  giveth  his  neighbor  drink,  that  putteth  thy 
bottle  to  him,  and  maketh  him  drunken  also."  My  feelings 
toward  him  are  not  of  unkindness. 


INTEMPERANCE.  473 

Women  :  In  times  of  national  peril,  when  the  sterner  sex 
must  go  to  battle  with  carnal  weapons,  then  we  ask  you  to 
stay  at  home  and  guard  well  the  purity  of  our  family  altars, 
and  in  your  closets  pray  for  us,  our  cause,  and  our  safe  re- 
turn ;  or,  hovering  like  a  convoy  of  angels  upon  the  rear  ot 
our  march,  nurse  the  wounded  and  the  dying  soldier  for  his 
mother  far  away.  But,  in  this  warfare,  where  flashing  steel 
and  roaring  cannon  avail  nothing,  we  want  you  by  our  side. 
Departing  from  our  side  originally  when  our  progenitor  slept 
and  dreamt  of  you,  we  want  you  back  as  our  helpmeet  in- 
deed, to  engage  in  a  work  in  which  your  interest  also  is  in- 
volved, and  which  from  your  nature  you  are  almost  omnipo- 
tent to  perform. 

Brethren :  Be  encouraged.  True,  our  powerful  enemy 
has  effectually  resisted,  so  far,  the  power  of  heaven  and  earth 
combined.  True,  he  is  backed  by  hell  and  wicked  men,  and 
that  our  cause  is  assailed  by  "  whited  sepulchres  "  on  the 
street  and  in  the  pulpit,  but  God  is  for  us.  Fight  on  till  our 
war-cry  shall  shake  into  dust  every  citadel  of  a  conquered 
foe,  and  our  banner  wave  over  a  land  redeemed  and  saved 
— till  "  cold  water,"  pure,  crystal,  limpid,  and  bright,  shall 
be  the  universal  beverage  of  the  world. 


LECTURE  V. 

THE    BIBLE. 
"Thy  word  is  truth." — John  xvii.  17. 

LET  us  have  a  plain  practical  talk  about  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures this  morning. 

I.  A  Divine  revelation  is  a  necessity.  Man's  nature  de- 
mands a  religion.  Progress  and  development  are  impossible 
in  the  absence  of  certain  motives  which  a  religion  can  only 
give.  Man  wants  to  know  if  there  is  a  God  ;  if  there  is  one 
God  or  many ;  what  His  nature  is ;  how  He  is  disposed  to- 
ward us.  Man  wants  to  know  the  origin  of  the  world  and 
himself;  the  reasons  of  the  various  types  of  his  race,  and 
the  reason  of  their  diversity  in  language  ;  he  wants  to  know 
the  reason  of  his  present  condition,  and  why  he  is  subject  to 
suffering  and  death ;  he  wants  to  know  if  there  is  any  possi- 
ble way  of  retrieving  his  moral  condition  ;  and  if  he  is  im- 
mortal, and  if  so  what  is  to  be  his  destiny,  and  upon  what 
conditions  that  destiny  is  founded.  These  things  he  cannot 
find  out  himself,  and  if  not  revealed  to  him  he  must  stumble 
in  the  dark  forever. 

Man  has  mind,  but  mind  is  only  a  receiver  of  light,  not  a 
source  of  light.  He  may  find  out  some  ideas  of  a  god  or 
gods,  from  nature,  but  he  never  can  learn  the  reason  of  his 
own  moral  condition,  and  the  remedy  for  it.  He  cannot 
find  out  the  law  of  God,  the  nature  of  obligations,  the  rewards 
and  punishments  of  the  future.     No  branch  of  human  learn- 


THE   BIBLE.  475 

ing,  or  art,  can  teach  these  things.  They  are  not  in  the 
language,  philosophy,  metaphysics,  mathematics,  jurispru 
dence,  and  poetry  of  the  ancient  and  heathen  world.  The 
people  of  Athens  loved  sculpture  and  painting,  and  the  city 
was  full  of  the  works  of  art,  yet  the  people  were  sunk  in  the 
depths  of  crime  and  moral  ignorance.  Civilization  without 
religion  has  always  debased  the  race,  not  improved  it. 

Facts  are  worth  more  than  arguments.  Take  such  phil- 
osophers as  Thales,  Herodotus,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Socrates, 
Democritus,  Euclid,  Hippocrates,  Epicurus,  Zeno  ;  and  such 
orators  as  Cicero  and  Demosthenes ;  and  such  poets  as 
Homer,  Virgil,  and  Ovid ;  and  with  all  their  greatness  they 
had  no  proper  conceptions  of  God.  Some  of  them  said 
there  was  no  God,  others  that  there  were  many  gods,  and 
the  many  gods  were  but  the  personification  of  places  and 
things.  Socrates  had  greater  knowledge  of  God  than  any  of 
the  others.  He  said  that  God  "was  one,  immutable,  and 
the  creator  of  all  things  ;  "  yet  he  admitted  that  he  knew  not 
what  God  was,  and  he  advised  his  followers  to  worship  the 
many  gods  of  Athens.  And  when  he  died  he  recognized 
the  deities  of  the  popular  theogony,  when  he  said,  "  To-night 
I  shall  sup  with  the  gods,"  and  when  he  told  his  friend  to  offer 
a  cock  as  a  sacrifice  to  Esculapius.  Some  of  them  gave 
God  the  vile  passions  of  man  ;  others  taught  that  God  was 
capricious,  arbitrary,  and  despotic.  The  whole  thing  was 
confusion  and  contradiction.  None  of  them  knew  of  God's 
holiness. 

They  had  false  ideas  of  God's  government.  Seneca  says, 
"  Fortune  scatters  her  gifts  over  the  world,  and  rules  without 
order  the  affairs  of  men."  The  Epicureans,  and  most  of  the 
philosophers,  taught  that  the  gods,  as  well  as  men,  were  sub- 
ject to  inexorable  fate.  The  Stoics  believed  that  the  gods 
only  interposed  upon  great  occasions.  They  knew  not  the 
will  of  God.     Some  taught  that  pleasure  was  the  end  of  life. 


476  LECTURES. 

They  advocated  and  practised  many  of  the  grossest  crimes* 
They  were  ignorant  of  everything  like  true  worship.  Many 
of  their  services  were  sensual,  revolting,  and  inhuman.  They 
knew  nothing  about  becoming  reconciled  to  God,  and  their 
knowledge  of  immortality,  &c.,  were  but  miserable  guesses. 
For  five  thousand  years  man  has  tried  to  find  out  God,  to 
learn  His  will,  and  without  revelation  they  have  not  advanced 
one  inch  over  their  fathers  toward  a  discovery.  "The 
world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God."  (i  Cor.  i.  21.)  We  need 
a  revelation  :  have  we  got  it  ?     Yes. 

II.  The  Bible  is  a  revelation  from  God.  It  proves  itself 
by  its  prophecies  with  reference  to  Christ,  Babylon,  Tyre, 
Nineveh,  Egypt,  Judea,  the  Jews,  and  the  church.  Even  in 
its  miracles,  not  one  of  them  were  wrought  but  in  connection 
with  some  great  moral  lesson  to  be  taught  men  :  not  one  of 
them  was  wrought  to  gratify  mere  curiosity.  Many  of  them 
in  their  connection  are  supported  by  the  philosophy  of  the 
case,  as  in  the  miracles  of  Egypt.  And  though  these  miracles 
were  recorded,  and  known  among  the  generation  which  wit- 
nessed them,  not  a  word  comes  down  to  us  of  objection  to 
their  credibility. 

The  character  of  the  men  who  wrote  shows  its  Divine 
origin.  The  worst  or  best  men  of  the  world  wrote  it.  If 
they  were  bad  men,  could  they  write  such  a  book  of  incom- 
parable purity  ?  going  even  into  the  motives  and  springs  of 
virtue.  No  mere  moralist  ever  went  so  far.  They  could  but 
produce  a  transcript  of  their  own  hearts ;  the  book  shows  it 
as  much  as  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  shows  the  character  of 
John  Bunyan.  If  they  were  good,  they  could  not  lie ;  and 
when  they  said  their  message  was  from  God,  it  was  so.  If 
the  whole  thing  is  a  forgery,  who  did  it,  and  is  it  not  strange 
that  no  historian  has  ever  suspicioned  it  ?  A  man's  signature 
to  any  document  is  considered  authentic  till  disproved.  The 
burden  of  proof  is  with  the  opponents.     Strange  the  Jews 


THE   BIBLE.  477 

never  thought  of  questioning  it.  And  their  estimate  of  the 
Divine  character  of  their  manuscripts,  and  their  extraordinary 
care  of  them,  show  that  an  imposture  in  this  respect  is  im- 
possible. 

The  preservation  of  all  the  parts  of  the  Bible  has  no  par- 
allel in  history.  Libraries  and  books  have  perished,  but 
here  is  a  large  number  of  manuscripts  written  during  a  period 
of  fifteen  hundred  years,  by  ab6ut  forty  men,  of  various 
occupations,  living  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  and  pre- 
served through  sieges,  wars,  captivities,  and  in  later  times  all 
brought  together  in  one  volume  ;  and  now  translated  into 
nearly  two  hundred  languages,  and  thrown  broadcast  over  the 
habitable  globe.  There  is  not  a  miracle  on  its  pages  greater 
than  this.  Yet  there  is  one  greater — that  when  all  these 
men's  manuscripts  were  collected,  one  great  plan  ran  through 
the  whole  in  gradual  development  to  the  end.  No  two 
heathen  philosophers  had  the  same  idea  of  God-;  yet  here  are 
men,  retaining  their  individuality  upon  their  books,  and 
agreeing  about  every  doctrinal  feature  about  God.  They 
had  no  standard  of  orthodoxy  to  govern  them  upon  funda- 
mental doctrines  ;  and  yet  each  writer  explains  the  other, 
and  the  Old  Testament  writers  unfold  a  plan  they  did  not 
understand.  Astounding  miracle  !  Its  influence  upon  the 
world  is  greater  than  any  human  production  could  possibly 
have  been. 

Take  the  character  of  its  revelations — leaving  out  the  his- 
tory of  the  people  with  which  is  woven  the  developing  plan, 
that  the  plan  might  develop  in  humanity,  for  whose  benefit 
the  plan  was  intended,  and  whom  it  must  touch,  or  it  would  be 
an  abstraction — and  take  its  doctrines.  What  do  we  know' 
about  God,  His  nature,  attributes,  works,  government,  love, 
and  glory  ?  All  we  know  is  what  the  Bible  teaches  us,  and 
its  teachings  are  explicit. 

It  only  teaches  what  is  man's  origin,  his  powers,  his  des- 


478  LECTURES. 

tination.  It  only  teaches  a  system  of  Pneumatology  and 
Psychology.  It  only  gives  the  reason  of  man's  life  here.  It 
only  teaches  human  depravity,  its  cause,  its  effects.  It 
teaches  neither  more  nor  less  than  what  we  all  know  to  be 
true.  It  only  relieves  God,  in  connection  with  our  sorrows, 
of  a  reflection  upon  His  wisdom,  goodness,  or  power — and 
while  throwing  the  responsibility  upon  us,  yet  is  the  only 
book  which  gives  us  hope  at  last.  It  only  teaches  upon 
reasonable  grounds  o.ir  accountability,  and  instructs  us  how 
to  act  in  relation  thereto,  how  to  prepare  for  the  future. 

It  only  teaches  us  our  duties  to  God  and  man,  and  reveals 
such  reasons  for  their  performance  as  our  minds  will  en- 
dorse. It  only  teaches  us  the  exalted  dignity  of  ourselves 
in  connection  with  such  service.  It  only  teaches  mair's 
immortality,  the  doctrine  of  a  judgment,  eternity,  heaven, 
hell,  eternal  life,  and  death.  It  only  teaches  the  plan  of 
redemption — the  love  of  God — and  salvation  through  a  god- 
man. 

Its  teachings  are  so  pure  in  their  tendency.  The  highest 
moral  purity  is  everywhere  enforced.  This  is  carried  beyond 
the  conduct  into  the  very  thoughts.  Purity  of  intention  is 
everywhere  insisted  upon.  No  class  of  men  is  excepted,  no 
apology  or  accommodation  for  any  vice.  Even  the  writers 
spare  not  themselves.  Moses  tells  us  that  he  was  reluctant  to 
obey  God  in  going  to  Egypt ;  he  tells  us  that  he  killed  an 
Egyptian  and  had  to  run  away  ;  he  tells  us  of  his  vainglory  at 
the  rock  of  Meribah,  and  that  he  was  forbidden  to  enter  the 
promised  land  on  account  of  it.  Its  best  men  are  not 
spared.  Yet  no  other  book  has  so  correctly  delineated  the 
human  heart,  and  given  man  so  much  consolation.     ■ 

The  book  is  inspired.  There  are  different  degrees  of 
inspiration;  and  there  are  different  modes  by  which  it  was 
given,  but  of  this  I  cannot  speak  now.  It  is  so  unlike  the 
fables  of  the  sacred  books  of  other  religions.    These  lack  evi- 


THE   BIBLE.  479 

dence,  most  of  them  are  absurd,  many  of  them  impure,  and 
they  did  not  inform  man  of  salvation  and  a  future  state.  It 
is  sufficient  in  the  knowledge  it  gives,  in  the  duties  it  lays 
down,  in  the  motives  it  presents,  in  the  admonitions  with 
which  it  abounds,  and  the  threatenings  and  promises  all  over 
its  pages.  It  is  fulness  itself.  No  man  need  say  that  it  is 
not  sufficient  to  him  for  any  matter  appertaining  to  his  sal- 
vation and  good. 

The  Bible  is  adapted  to  every  man.  Brother,  are  you  a 
traveller  ?  This  book  is  a  map  of  the  country  through 
which  you  journey,  and  it  gives  you  an  outline,  the  skirtings 
of  the  country  to  which  you  are  journeying — that  part  of  the 
country  which  touches  this.  You  can  see  the  trees,  and 
through  the  interstices  of  the  foliage,  glimpses  of  a  city. 
Brother,  is  life  a  sea,  and  you  a  mariner  ?  The  Bible  is  youi 
chart — consult  it.  Are  you  a  stranger  here  ?  You  must  be 
a  stranger  here,  or  you  are  no  Christian.  If  a  stranger,  you 
are  a  pilgrim.  The  Bible  is  your  staff.  Are  you  a  warrior  ? 
The  Bible  is  your  book  of  tactics.  It  describes  your  armor, 
tells  you  how  many  pieces,  where  to  get  them,  and  how  to 
use  them.  It  tells  you  also  all  about  the  enemy.  Do  you 
acknowledge  yourself  a  subject  of  God's  kingdom?  The 
Bible  is  the  code  of  the  kingdom.  Are  you  a  student  of  the 
mysteries  of  God  ?     The  Bible  is  your  text-book. 

It  is  adapted  to  every  condition.  Are  you  poor  and 
needy?  "The  needy  shall  not  always  be  forgotten:  the 
expectations  of  the  poor  shall  not  perish  forever."  Are  you 
a  stranger?  "  The  Lord  preserveth  the  strangers."  Are 
you  fatherless,  a  widow  ?  The  Lord  "  relieveth  the  father- 
less and  widow."  Are  you  bowed  down  ?  "  The  Lord 
raise th  them  that  are  bowed  down."  Are  you  in  trouble  ? 
"God  is  ....  a  very  present  help  in  trouble."  Have  you 
many  afflictions  ?  "  Many  are  the  afflictions  of  the  right- 
eous :  but  the  Lord  delivereth  him  out  of  them  all."     Are 


4S0  LECTURES. 

you  heart-broken  ?  "  The  Lord  is  nigh  unto  them  that  are 
of  a  broken  heart."  Are  you  tempted  ?  "  God  is  faithful, 
who  will  not  suffer  you  to  be  tempted  £.bove  that  ye  are 
able;  but  will  with  the  temptation  make  a  way  to  escape, 
that  ye  may  be  able  to  bear  it."  Are  you  in  tribulation  ? 
"  Blessed  be  God  ....  who  comforteth  us  in  all  our  tribu- 
lations." Are  you  slandered  and  persecuted  ?  "  Blessed 
are  ye,  when  men  shall  revile  you,  and  persecute  you,  and 
shall  say  all  manner  of  evil  against  you  falsely,  for  my  sake. 
Rejoice  and  be  exceeding  glad  :  for  great  is  your  reward  in 
heaven."  I  might  follow  this  strain  of  talking  all  day — in 
all  conditions,  rich  or  poor,  sick  or  well,  young  or  old,  the 
Bible  is  full  of  instructions  and  promises.  With  its  broad 
wing  it  covers  the  world.  It  only  cheers  the  dying,  kindles 
a  light  in  the  grave,  and  opens  the  doors  of  a  blessed  immor- 
tality. It  is  all  we  have  got.  Doubly  cursed  the  man  who 
would  rob  humanity  of  the  treasure.  Come,  sir,  give  us  a 
better.  It  is  a  book  which  defies  all  improvement — it  is 
perfect. 

No  book  has  been  so  fiercely  attacked  in  every  age  as  the 
Bible.  And  after  its  teachings  had  conquered  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  world,  and  that  civilization  became  professedly 
Christian,  that  civilization  went  over  to  the  Devil,  and  the 
church  itself  tried  to  burn  up  all  the  Bibles  in  the  world ;  but 
Church  and  State,  infidel  and  pagan,  criminal  and  philoso- 
pher, have  all  failed  to  destroy  it.  The  Bible  is  no  feeble 
child  begging  in  the  streets  of  our  Vanity  Fair,  but  it  is  a  lofty 
giant,  his  mother  Love,  his  father  God,  and  his  strides  over 
toppling  thrones  and  down  the  ages  have  awakened  the  dead. 
He  shakes  thunders  from  his  flowing  hair,  and  his  armor 
shines  like  the  sun.  The  breath  of  God  was  the  furnace  blast, 
and  Horeb's  top  the  anvil,  when  Jehovah  forged  him  helmet, 
breastplate,  and  buckler ;  and  the  infant  Jesus  gave  him  a 
sword  out  of  heaven's  armory;  and  while  John  fell  worship- 


THE   BIBLE.  48 1 

ping,  the  stars  danced  the  sky  to  the  song  of  the  angels, 
when  he  was  commissioned  to  take  the  world.  Kill  him  ? 
Kill  an  archangel  ?  Kill  the  Lord  of  glory  again  ?  Kill 
God  ?  Priest  and  infidel,  get  out  of  the  way  !  God's  eter- 
nal truth  owns  the  eternal  years,  and  the  Bible  yet  will  be 
the  code  of  all  nations,  the  arbiter  of  all  questions,  the 
referee  in  all  disputes,  the  grand  court  of  appeal  for  the 
world,  and  the  Bible  and  Jesus  will  be  King  of  the  world. 
Go  on,  blessed  old  Book  ! — Let  wicked  men  scoff.  Go  on, 
and  teach  the  rich  man  how  to  use  his  wealth,  the  poor  man 
how  to  be  happy  in  his  cabin — teach  all  men  the  way  of  sal- 
vation ;  and  when  we  die  give  us  a  promise  and  hope  of  ira 
mortality,  and  kindle  a  light  in  our  graves  which  all  hell  can- 
not blow  out — and  you  have  done  for  us  what  all  the  world's 
philosophy  never  dreamed  of. 
21 


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